


All That I Want

by ratherunnecessary



Series: when your eyes meet mine, we show it [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (the true trifecta), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Established Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky, F/F, Slow Burn, difficult family relationships, so much crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-04 18:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14598726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherunnecessary/pseuds/ratherunnecessary
Summary: Mila just won bronze at Worlds. Her best friend is newly engaged. Viktor’s determined to pull off a skating exhibition like no one’s ever seen. And Mila’s starting to realize that her initial judgement of Sara Crispino as a boy-crazy bubblehead was very, very wrong. This should be the best summer of her life.So why does Mila feel more alone than ever?





	All That I Want

**Author's Note:**

> Begins between the last chapter and epilogue of [Half a Chance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503372). 
> 
> [art by jovaline](https://ratherunnecessary.tumblr.com/post/173782980086/all-that-i-want-a-yuri-on-ice-fic-mila) / [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/justanxietythings/playlist/16OcTm8GovpU7zmo1v7pJF?si=U5gvlJgSTRqfWFTysOer9A) / [full timeline](https://ratherunnecessary.tumblr.com/post/173782737671/when-your-eyes-meet-mine-we-show-it-timeline)
> 
> beta'd by [verity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/verity), who i love with my whole heart
> 
>  

It’s only when she wakes up in a hotel room, naked except for her bronze 2018 World Figure Skating Championship medal around her neck, with Seung-gil Lee on one side and the Israeli skater whose name she’s totally blanking on the other, that Mila realizes she might be a little bit out of control.

It’s certainly not a _new thought_ , per se—usually it occurs following a lengthy White Night or a reckless lutz takeoff or an unnecessarily nasty fight with her mother—but this is the first time she wonders, distantly, if she should worry about herself. 

The heavy, hotel-grade blackout curtains are pulled wide open, the late spring fog slowly dissipating in the path of the rising sun. Mila stares, blinking rapidly into sudden alertness, first at the sun then at her bedfellows, until she hears the sound that woke her in the first place: her phone’s text tone.

She carefully extracts herself, limb by limb, from Seung-gil and Benyamin (there’s his name! Mila knew she’d remember eventually), which turns out to be much more difficult than it should be, given that Benyamin is basically using her right breast as a pillow. But thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed and what Mila hazily remembers as a good amount of athletic ‘activity,’ both men stay asleep and Mila can pad over to her discarded skirt in the corner and pull her phone out of its pocket.

She has multiple texts in a bunch of group threads across her apps—quite a few in the WhatsApp Milan 2018 thread, where club recommendations and party tips are still trickling in; more in the Unofficial Team Russia group which now is made up of her and Yuri and Yuuri and Viktor and most recently Otabek—and then single ones from Georgi, Viktor and Yuri, but it’s the one from Yuri that’s most recent and as soon as Mila swipes it open she knows what it’s going to say.

`**yuri-plisetsky** : you have until the end of this cup of coffee`

_Fuck_. Mila scrabbles through the clothes strewn across the floor. Her room key is jammed into the back of her phone case. The heavy beading of her top scrapes unpleasantly against her skin as she slips on her skirt and unceremoniously stuffs her bra into the pocket.

She hesitates at the door but doesn’t stop it from closing silently behind her. Benyamin and Seung-gil disappear inch by inch from her view.

The third floor is empty and thankfully so is the elevator—and the moment Mila sees her reflection in those absurd wall-to-wall mirrors inside the fucking thing, she is triply grateful. She punches the button for the fifth floor before she looks over herself. Her eyeliner is smeared over her lids; her hair is so snarled it might be a lost cause. She has a scattering of little lovebites over her collarbones, fully on display in the wide-necked top, and a frankly excessive hickey right on the side of her neck.

“For fuck’s sake,” she sighs at her reflection. She adjusts the medal so it covers one of the worst bites, but it’s a losing game. “You’re lucky you medaled,” she says to the other Mila, the one who looks like she had the night of her life, the one who still manages to look devastatingly beautiful despite (because of?) her complete dishevelment. “Otherwise, this would be so fucking self-indulgent.”

 

—-

 

Mila spots Yuri the moment the elevator doors creak open. He’s in the hotel bar/café, lounging back in his chair, one hand crammed into his hoodie pocket and his phone in the other. On the table, there are two mugs, one empty and one full of cold coffee.

She sits across from him “Remind me,” she says, signaling the waiter, “why we decided on 7 a.m.?”

Yuri doesn’t say anything until the waiter has switched out the cold coffee for a fresh mug, until after Mila has added the cream and stirred. He waits until Mila has raised the cup for her first sip to set down his phone and say, “You _reek_.”

Mila rolls her eyes and plunks the coffee down. “At least I changed my clothes. I figured the priority was getting down here before you finished your coffee.” She eyes the empty cup pointedly.

Yuri scoffs but doesn’t deny it. They both know the vast majority of his threats are empty. Instead, he lifts a finger for the waiter. “I’m still waiting on those two croissants. And I need a cappuccino,” he snaps in English to the poor boy, who scurries off to the kitchen. Mila kicks Yuri under the table but he kicks back harder. Mila yelps when he hits a bruise on her shin straight on. “Sore, are you?” he says.

“No more than you, I expect. Tell me, do you decide who bottoms depending on who wins gold?”

Yuri flushes a deep red, clavicle to hairline. It makes him look fifteen again, despite the faint stubble on his chin. “Shut up,” is all he says. Mila takes that as a yes. 

The waiter brings the pastries and coffee along with an apology, and after Yuri waves him away impatiently they eat in quiet for a few minutes. Mila had eaten little at the banquet and has to stop herself from wolfing it down in three bites. Yuri mostly shreds his to bits between his fingers. “Is that my beanie?” he says.

“Yes,” Mila says. “It looks good on me, doesn’t it?”

Yuri scowls. “Black goes better with silver than with bronze.”

“Black goes with everything, Yura.”

The scowl deepens but Yuri says nothing. The sun is fully up now, glinting off the morning dew on the windows, and Mila has to acknowledge that the temporary peace of the café is lovely. It’ll be overrun in no time as skaters and coaches and managers and choreographers rush to get their final caffeine fixes before returning to every corner of the earth. Normally, Mila loves being at the center of that bustle, but after the craziness of the last few days, it’s wonderful to sit here, Yuri across from her, coffee in hand and the certain weight of the medal still against her breastbone.

The waiter refills her coffee. As he goes, Yuri says, “Viktor wants Otabek and I to come to Hasetsu. When they go in two weeks.”

“Are you going to go?”

Yuri shrugs, which is Yuri-speak for _I want to but I’m anxious about it_.

“Did Yuuri say anything?”

“He wants me to come, too. He still feels guilty, I think.”

“Well, everyone’s apologized as many times as possible, and you can’t avoid it forever. This is the part where all of you put in the hard work of actually rebuilding the relationships. It could be a good chance to put any lasting demons to rest.”

“That’s what Beka said, too.”

“If Beka and I agree, there’s a 100% chance we’re right.”

“You should come. You could bring Dominika.” Yuri looks at her, sourness transforming seamlessly into pleading. 

The last time Mila saw Dominika comes to her right away, complete with Dom’s parting words. _Fuck you, Mila Babicheva. You can go straight to hell._ She has to shake her head to dispel the memory. “I have to be home for Inga’s gala,” she says.

“She’s finally graduating?”

“It’s only been eight years, I know. Yes, she’s graduating.”

“Your mother must be in a state.”

Mila’s phone dings at that moment, and she’s not at all surprised to see it’s text from her mother. Yuliya’s always had a sixth sense about knowing when she’s the topic of conversation.

At first Mila thinks it’s just a four-word commendation for Yuliya’s oldest daughter’s latest achievement—` _congratulations on the bronze_`—but then Mila scrolls and sees it’s followed by a laundry list of things to be done before the gala in early April. At the end, Yuliya has written, `_I will send Ivann to pick you up the evening of the 31st._`

“Is it her?” Yuri’s finished his croissant and is leaning over the table to see.

“Of course. She knows you were talking shit.” Mila passes her phone to Yuri. 

“I could talk shit about your mother until I’m blue in the face but I don’t think she knows I exist, except maybe as one of Lilia’s students.” He frowns as he reads the text. “ _On the bronze_ , really, is that necessary? Christ, it’s like she doesn’t care unless you’re perfect. And—oh, for fuck’s sake.” He’s reached the to-do list. His face is incredulous when he looks at Mila. “Are you _joking_?”

Mila takes the phone and stuffs it away in her jacket pocket. “It’s very Yuliya.”

Yuri still looks revolted. “I’m so glad I’m basically an orphan.”

“I wish that more often than not. I suppose I’m lucky I love my sister. And not in a Creepy Crispino way.”

“That’s not fair,” Yuri says. When Mila looks at him, he shrugs. “I feel bad for Sara, that’s all. She didn’t choose to be Mickey’s twin.”

“No, but she chooses to let him hang around all the time.”

“It’s okay if you’re bitter about being beaten out for gold,” Yuri says earnestly. “That would be very reasonable. And anyway, Yakov says you need more female role models.”

Mila huffs out a breath. “Fuck Yakov. Sara’s barely a few years older than I am, and I don’t want to be _reasonable_. My god. What is wrong with you? What happened to us just hating people together?”

Yuri brightens. “We can talk about how much we hate JJ! Or how obnoxious Yuuri and Viktor’s PDA is!”

“I’d rather talk about how you only lost gold to Beka because you spent his entire free skate ogling him instead of focusing on the fact that you were skating directly after. I know you feel self-righteous about your lack of PDA but eyefucking certainly counts. And my god, that ridiculousness on the podium?!”

Yuri blushes again, and Mila laughs. “ _Well_ ,” he snaps in his most cutting tone. “then we should also talk about how you muscle your axel so intensely that you should just making it a triple. Then maybe you would have had a chance at beating Sara.”

“This feels much more natural,” Mila says. “Critique my footwork next.”

“Your counter is so sloppy your great-grandmother Babicheva is rolling over in her grave,” Yuri says without missing a beat, and they both laugh.

 

—-

 

They’re thoroughly rehashed everyone’s programs in addition to their own and then the banquet’s resulting gossip, and Mila is telling Yuri a sanitized version of her night, when Christophe Giacometti appears next to their table.

“My two favorite Russians!” he exclaims, beaming. He spins a chair out of thin air and plunks himself down. There’s a to-go cup of coffee in his hand. “How are we this morning?”

Mila has to grin; he’s six feet of pure charm (or sex appeal, depending on which switch he decides to flip), and Mila likes being charmed. 

Yuri does not. “If we’re your two favorite Russians, where does that leave Viktor?” he says, irritated.

Chris waves a hand, managing to convey both dismissal and concession. “I forget he’s Russian these days! Fine, two of my favorite Russians. How are you?”

“Lovely, Chris, thanks for you asking. Yourself?” Mila says.

“Wonderful. I love Italy. Their coffee is some of the best. It just makes me want to fall in love.” He flutters his eyelashes at Mila. 

She rests her chin in her hand. “Chris. You’re already in love. With yourself. You know as well as I do that there isn’t room for anyone else.”

Chris laughs. Yuri is making incoherent sputtering noises. 

“Mila Babicheva, I suspect no man is good enough for you. Including myself. But if you ever decide you want to give it a go...” He leers at her, just a bit, in a playful way that is not at all sexy but is entirely endearing.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Yuri says, finally forming words out of what sounds like an oncoming asthma attack.“I’m literally _right here_.”

“Yurio, how are you?” Chris asks him, smiling genially as if Yuri had simply said . “Congratulations on the silver. And on the gold, I suppose. I’ve never seen Otabek skate like that. He’s a man possessed.”

“I will _kill_ you,” Yuri snarls, face beet red—he really, strongly dislikes anyone attributing any of Otabek’s success to his influence—so Mila decides it might be time for them to depart. Quickly.

“Good to see you, Chris,” she says, pulling Yuri out of his seat by the elbow, “but we have to pack. Safe trip home and we’ll see you soon!”

“ _Ciao_!” Chris calls after them. Mila waves and tows a still-steaming Yuri towards the safety of the elevator. It chimes, doors opening, and Emil Nekola emerges. 

“Yuri, Mila!” Emil says. He claps each of them on the shoulder with a giant hand. “I haven’t had the chance to say congrats. The pride and joy of Russia!”

“Thank you, Emil.” Mila turns towards him, but Yuri grabs her by the jacket and yanks her into the elevator. “We’ll talk soon!” she calls through the closing doors. Emil waves once more before he disappears from view. Mila rounds on Yuri as he stabs the numbers for their floors. “What's the matter with you?” she asks. “We like Emil.”

“I have too much packing to do,” Yuri grumbles, pulling his hood up and leaning against the wall, “and I don't enjoy watching you flirt with the entire senior division.”

“I don’t _flirt_. I make conversation,” Mila says.

“There’s a difference for you?”

“Fuck off,” Mila says, nettled. “Beka is rubbing off on you. Before long you'll be going to bed at 9 p.m. after your evening cup of mint tea.”

Yuri rolls his eyes as the doors open onto his floor. He steps out, then looks back at her. “Come by our room when you’re done packing. I’ll barely see you in Pita before we head out.”

“We’ll have those glorious long days of press together before that,” Mila says, but then, “Of course,” and Yuri smiles his wide, impish grin at her right before the doors close. Mila feels a pang as the elevator lurches upwards. Sometimes it astonishes her that, despite how much he’s grown up, Yuri still manages to be exactly the same as he’s always been: fiercely loyal, unyieldingly honest, and insufferably annoying. 

A text from Benyamin comes in while she’s in the shower. `_Thank you for a lovely evening. Safe travels back to Russia_`, is all it says, and as post-hookup texts go, it’s one of the nicest ones Mila thinks she’s ever received. It makes her feel pretty cheery as she crawls under the bed to find her missing skate guard and whirls around the room gathering up her shit. After this many years of traveling and competing, she probably should have figured out how to stay in a hotel without scattering her belongings across every inch but inevitably she finds herself wondering how her hairspray ended up in the bottom drawer of the desk by the window and why on earth she hung her sleep t-shirt in the closet but left her SP costume in a pile on the ratty carpet.

She remembers right as she’s finishing that Yuuri borrowed her hair dryer before the gala. He doesn’t pick up his phone and Mila just wants to be done so she can maybe go for a walk and see a bit of the city before their flight that evening, so she stuffs her room key in her pocket and heads down the hall towards where she thinks he and Viktor are.

The hotel is ancient and labyrinthine, one of those old relics of cities like Milan that have just been added on to over the years, which is cool if you’re a tourist but extremely irritating if you’re trying to find a room that you went to once, right after getting off a plane from another country. Before too long, Mila has to admit that she’s entirely lost. She can’t even remember which direction her room is in.

Of course, that’s the moment that she turns a corner and sees Seung-gil.

She hides instinctively, plastering her body against the dusty rose-colored wallpaper, praying that he didn't see her. He hadn't been looking in her direction; he'd been focused on his phone in his hand, slightly turned away. As soon as she retreats, though, she feels ashamed of herself. She has no reason to hide—she's done nothing wrong.

Still, she doesn't have to make small talk with the guy if she doesn't want to. So she sneaks backwards carefully and silently, hoping that her room is in this direction. 

Two more steps—then one more step—and then Seung-gil rounds the corner ahead of her and she freezes, trapped. 

“Mila. What a surprise” he says, totally unsurprised. His accent is flat, barely accented. He's cleaned up as well, dressed in blue jeans and a nice sweater. 

“Good morning,” she says. She's very grateful she already showered, even if her undried hair is dripping cold water down the back of her neck.

Seung-gil doesn’t say anything else, just stands there and looks at her. Mila quashes the urge to apologize— _I have nothing to be sorry for, I have nothing to be sorry for_ —and casts about for a neutral topic of conversation.

“When do you fly back to Seoul?”

“In an hour.”

Again, he says nothing else. Mila remembers him being perfectly vocal the night before so she figures this can’t be anything except spite. Or plain social awkwardness. But Mila isn’t feeling very generous so she’s going to go with spite.

“Well, unfortunately, I am not the most efficient traveler and my unpacked suitcase is calling my name,” she says, “so, if you’ll excuse me...” She backs away again, and when Seung-gil’s face remains expressionless, she turns to go—and runs right into Sara and Mickey Crispino.

“Mila!” Sara exclaims immediately. “Hello, how are you? Congratulations on the medal—you should be very proud, I always say that being on the podium at all is the greatest achievement.” She beams, and the wattage of her smile makes her own gold medal, worn over her bulky sweater, gleam just that much brighter. Behind her, Mickey is wearing his usual sour look. 

_I am being punished for my wanton ways_ , Mila thinks. “Thank you,” she says, mustering a smile of her own, but Sara is still talking, now to Seung-gil as well.

“Have either of you been to Milan before? We’re just about to get to the best weather of the season. Come to breakfast! There’s a little café just around the corner, near Parco delle Basiliche, perfect for a short walk after a cup of coffee and a croissant.”

“Sara,” Mickey says, “you can’t just invite whoever you want to breakfast all the time.”

“Why can’t I?” Sara says breezily. “Mila and Seung-gil are our friends.”

 _That’s generous, certainly._ Mila supposes that in a world where Sara hadn’t been a twin and Mickey didn’t exist it’s possible she and Sara might have been friends, but as things stand she’d rather gouge her own eyes out than spend two minutes in his presence. Even though Sara has obviously taken steps to extricate herself from him, Mickey is still always lounging across the room or just around the corner, glaring daggers at whoever Sara is speaking to. Even on the rare occasions Mila has talked to Sara one on one, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing around, wondering where he was hiding.

“I’d love to join,” Seung-gil says. Sara looks as surprised as Mila feels, but she hides it smoothly.

“Wonderful! Mila?”

All three of them look at Mila. Seung-gil raises his eyebrows very slightly. “Er—no, thank you, I have to finish packing,” she says. “Have a good time.” 

“Oh, too bad,” Sara says. Mila has to give her credit: she looks genuinely disappointed. “Well, have a good flight back to St. Petersburg and I’m sure I’ll see you soon. Call me if you come through Italy this summer and I’ll do the same if I’m in Russia!”

“I will,” Mila says, already heading in what she hopes is the direction of her room. Sara’s chipper smile feels like it chases her down the hallway.

 

—-

 

Five minutes and one text to Yuuri later, there’s a knock on her door. Mila gladly leaves off sorting her toiletries (again, spread all over the bathroom) to answer and Yuuri is there with the dryer in hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I completely forgot I had it.”

“Totally all right,” Mila says, taking it. “Though I’m surprised Viktor doesn’t have one.”

“He says now that he cut his hair and no longer competes, he doesn’t need it.”

“Bedhead does look good on him,” Mila says. “So you’re all going to Hasetsu?”

Yuuri sits on the bed next to her case as she tries to fit the hairdryer in. “I hope so. Yuri hasn’t said for certain.”

Yuri had sounded pretty certain earlier in the elevator, but Mila says nothing. He likely wants to keep them guessing and Mila isn’t about to deny him the simple pleasure.

“We would love it if you came, too, Mila,” Yuuri says. He pushes his glasses up with a finger and peers at her. “There’s plenty of room at the onsen, and we haven’t had the chance to show you Hasetsu.”

Mila finds herself oddly touched by the formality of the invitation. She knows Yuuri wouldn’t ask if he didn’t mean it. “Thank you,” she says, “but my sister is graduating from the Vaganova and I have to be in St. Petersburg for all the associated celebrations.”

“The Vaganova...?” Yuuri can’t place the name.

“Academy of ballet. One of the more prestigious schools, so it’s an huge to-do.”

“That’s incredible. I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

“Inga. She’s younger.” 

“Are you close?”

“Yes. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother.”

“Well, I hope it goes great. Though we’ll miss you.” Yuuri’s phone buzzes and he looks down. “Ah,” he sighs, standing, “Viktor says he refuses to pack my suitcase again and that if I don’t want us to miss the flight I need to come take care of it.”

“Do you ever think about just how much our lives are spent packing and unpacking?” Mila muses.

“Probably best not to.” Yuuri waves cheerily from the doorway and then he’s gone. 

 

—-

 

The flight is brief and more bearable than usual, and since Otabek is coming back to St. Petersburg for the few days before they go to Japan, Yuri sleeps on his shoulder and Mila sleeps on Yuri’s for the duration, and then they’re back in Russia and Mila feels an enormous wave of exhaustion crash over her at the sight of Pita. It’s been such a long season and she won’t be able to really relax until after they do press for a few days and then there will be the stupid gala and the stupid party and then a summer full of ice shows.

It is wonderful to come back to her cramped wreck of an apartment. Luc is at class so she blasts a Disclosure remix as she throws her laundry into the wash and properly stores her costumes. The suitcase gets to stay in the middle of her floor, since she’ll need to pack it to go to the family estate (she refuses to think of it as home) in just a few weeks.

She does a passable job of cleaning and vacuums the whole apartment since Luc is always getting on her about it anyway, and finally when she feels like she’s earned it, she orders food and sprawls out on the lumpy couch and calls Inga while she waits for it to arrive.

“Mila!” Inga always manages to say Mila’s name with more excitement and affection than should be able to fit in the short name. Mila can already feel her spirits lifting at the sound of it.

“Hello, little bunny,” Mila says. 

“It’s so nice to hear your voice.”

“It’s all right, you can say I never call.” 

“Well,” says Inga diplomatically. Mila snorts.

“How are you?”

“So well, Mila. I can’t wait for you to see my piece. I think it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever danced.”

“I expect you’ll be working hard until the last second.”

“It’s just a question of practice from here on out. And trying not to injure myself.” Inga laughs her bubbling, hiccuping laugh that always reminds Mila of late-night stories whispered to each other between their cramped bunk beds, before Yuliya had married Grigory and they’d moved to the country and into separate bedrooms. “But how rude of me, to not congratulate you! A medal at Worlds. Incredible, Mila.”

“Only a bronze, after all,” Mila sighs.

“More than most people can claim. Aren’t you proud?”

“Of course,” she says, and she supposes it’s true. With Viktor and Yuri blazing away on either side of her, she gave up feeling truly disappointed in bronze years ago. Mila’s been the steady bet her whole career, the one who quietly wins respectable medals at respectable competitions but doesn’t win gold at five Grand Prixes in a row or break a record every time she sets foot on the ice. And that’s fine. She knows who she is and there’s no use in wishing to be someone else.

“Your skate was so ferocious! I loved it. What a good arrangement.”

“Thank you, bunny. Tell me about the party. Who all did you invite?”

“Mama managed the guest list but I got a few special slots. Lilia Baranovskaya accepted, which is so exciting! I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me. The Petrushkins, Alina Stepanova and her new husband. They have the cutest little baby. Oh, and...”

Inga trails off. “What? Who else?” Mila asks.

“I asked Mama not to invite them... but she insisted.”

“Who, Ingri?”

“The Zakharins. So Nikolai will be there.”

“Oh.” Mila absorbs this. For all Inga knows, Mila hasn’t seen Nick since breaking the engagement off—more than two years ago now. If she knew the truth, her sister would be seven times more anxious.

But Inga doesn’t know, and Mila isn’t about to change that. So all she says is, “I’ll keep a civil tongue. You don’t need to worry about me causing trouble.”

“Well, I don’t want you to pretend to be someone other than yourself, so just try to keep it to a minimum.” Inga laughs again.

Mila hangs up only when the pizza arrives. She barely stops herself from eating the whole thing. Luc comes back from his afternoon class and steals a piece, complaining the whole time about his useless undergrads and their terrible pronunciation.

“I’ll be honest,” Mila says around a mouthful of pepperoni. “French sounds like gargling to me. Though the accent makes your English sound a hell of a lot more pleasant that mine.”

“And Russian sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Yet we’re all just trying to be understood. Isn’t language amazing?”

“If you say so,” Mila says, laughing, and Luc laughs too and shrugs. 

“Are we going out tonight?” he asks as Mila puts the rest of the pizza in the fridge.

Mila groans. “I wish.” There’s no better homecoming than stepping off the plane and onto a pulsing dance floor. That was how she’d met Luc in the first place: she’d just won her first medal at Worlds and he’d just graduated from his doctoral program. “I have to be up so early for press tomorrow and I might die from exhaustion if I don’t get some sleep.”

Unfortunately, the exhaustion doesn’t translate into sleepiness. She tosses and turns most of the night, and it feels like her alarm goes off the moment she finally falls asleep. She hits snooze enough times that she has to take a cab instead of the metro. She makes the driver stop at Pyshki for coffee on the way, so all in all it’s not too bad of a result. She picks up a capp for Yuri as well, and balances it on her knee while she goes over the extensive list of upcoming interviews and reminders that Tashka, their publicist, sent over late last night. Apparently, she’s gone into labor with her fourth child and won’t be meeting them at the station as usual; the end of her email specifies `_but my absence doesn’t give you leave to say whatever you want. Please don’t embarrass me and yourselves!!!_` Mila wouldn’t be surprised if she had actually written it from the delivery room.

Yuri is almost twenty minutes late; the makeup artist is just about done with Mila when he finally shows up, hoodie up and a beanie under it for good measure.

“You’re late,” she says.

“I know,” snaps Yuri. He throws himself in the other chair. “My alarm didn’t go off.”

“I got you a capp, but it’s probably cold now.” Mila holds out the paper cup.

“Oh.” Yuri produces a travel mug. “Beka made coffee.”

Mila blinks, holding the cup out for a moment longer before pulling it back. She shrugs. “No worries. I can be overcaffeinated today.”

Finished with Mila, the makeup artist moves on to Yuri. “You know it’s spring in Pita when we all have these dark circles, mm?” she says as she pats concealer under his eyes. “My allergies have been terrible.”

“Are you hydrating? Mine are worse when I don’t drink enough water,” Mila says.

“Of course I’m hydrating,” Yuri says snidely. “I’m not an amateur.”

Mila rolls her eyes and sits back. She drinks the cappuccino in silence while Yuri gets prepped and then a PA shows up to take them to set, which is awash in bright white light that makes Mila’s temples want to split. She sneaks a water bottle from the craft table and downs most of it before they’re ushered to yet another waiting area. They’re watching a grip struggle with a punctured sandbag when Yuri knocks his shoulder against hers.

“Hi, by the way.”.

“Are you done being grumpy?” Mila asks.

“I didn’t get much sleep.”

“Jet lag?”

“Among other things.” The stylist had made him take off his beanie and braided his hair. He’s picking at the end, smile still on his lips but softer at the edges now.

“Ugh,” Mila scoffs. Yuri looks over at her.

“What, am I not allowed to disgust you with my sex life? God knows you’ve taken every opportunity to do so with me for years now.”

“It’s different.”

“How’s that.”

“You’re like my little brother.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “And you’re like my sister. In what world would I want to hear about your sex life?”

Mila just sighs, loud and protracted. Yuri elbows her.

“You’re not answering because you know I’m right.”

Mila sighs again, louder, to drown him out.

“Whatever,” Yuri says, satisfied. “I’m right.”

“Mila Babicheva and Yuri Plisetsky?” another PA says behind them. “We’re ready for you.”

The interview is fine—they’ve been on St. Petersburg Today before, and the hosts make a good show of their interest. Mila is used to TV interviews but she always has this eerie sense that she’s just pretending to be Mila Babicheva, World Figure Skating Championship bronze medal winner. It’s better with Yuri there, though for some reason the male host keeps pronouncing salchow as “sale-chow-ee”. By the end of it, she has to step on Yuri’s foot to keep him from laughing out loud in addition to choking down her own giggles.

“Yes,” Yuri says in answer to one question, “I remember landing my first quad jump—a quad _salchow_ —and it’s certainly not as difficult for our generation of skaters, I think. It’s a question of mindset.”

They make it through without embarrassing either themselves or the interviewer, so afterwards Mila suggests brunch as a reward.

“Beka is actually three floors down doing a satellite interview for the national Kazakh station,” Yuri says as yet another PA leads them out of the labyrinthine station. "So I’m going to wait for him. Want to come?” Just then, his phone dings and he looks down.

Mila checks her own phone, which she hasn’t done since before they were on set, and she has a text from Dom. `_just found some of your stuff_`, it says. `_can I bring it by in an hour?_` Mila swipes it open. The cursor blinks in the text box, her mind blank.

“Mila.” Yuri’s looking at her. “Coming?” He glances at the phone in her hands and then back up at her.

Mila doesn’t know why she doesn’t tell him. She’s had multiple opportunities and this is just the latest and the longer she takes the more upset Yuri will be when she finally tells him. He’s always been the first to know when she’s broken up with someone, but for some reason, with Dom, she just... can’t.

So instead, she texts Dom back a simple `_yep_`, and says to Yuri, “I forgot—I have plans, so I should be going. Give my love to Beka and I’ll see you this afternoon!”

“That’s not another TV interview, is it?” Yuri squints at her, trying to remember.

“No, print. Don’t be late! I don’t care how good the sex is!” she says as she heads off down the hall.

Yuri blushes, of course, and yells after her, “I hate you and I never want to see you again!”

“I love you, too!” Mila sings and takes the 14 flights of stairs all the way down to the street.

 

—-

 

Even though she lays down right when she gets home, she falls asleep minutes before the buzzer rings. Mila hoists herself off the couch and jogs down the hall to the building entryway. She pulls the door open and there Dom is, box in hand, cigarette tucked between her lips.

“Hi,” Mila says.

“Hi,” Dom says back. Balancing the box on one arms, she stubs out the cigarette on the concrete ledge that serves as a handrail. “Congrats on Worlds.” 

“You watched?” Mila asks, surprised.

“No. Mikhail told me.” Dom holds out the box. Zhuravli cranes take flight on the side; she must have taken it from the club. “Your SKA St. Petersburg sweatshirt. The ancient one. And the Rudimental import, and Flume record. Among other things.”

Mila takes it. “Thank you.” Then, before she can stop herself, “I thought you quit smoking.” 

Dom shrugs. “I started again.” She offers no further explanation. Her hair isn’t styled in its usual quiff—it falls in waves over her ears and forehead, softening her silhouette.

They both stand there on the stoop, looking at the box in Mila’s hands. Neither of them move until the wind kicks up again and Dom flips her jacket collar against it. “So,” Mila says. “How are you?”

“Oh, now you care?” Dom says. Her tone isn’t even sarcastic, just unhappy; she shakes her head and looks away abruptly, biting her lip. “I’m sorry. I said I was going to be pleasant. We’re broken up, after all.”

Mila’s stomach twists in on itself. “And you’re the one who did the breaking up,” she points out unnecessarily.

Dom looks at her. “I said the words. But you were gone long before that.”

Mila goes hot, scalp prickling at the accusation, though it certainly isn’t the first time she’s heard it. They’ve had this fight so many times and Mila doesn’t want to do it again. “Well, thank you for bringing my stuff over.”

The resignation on Dom’s face makes Mila’s intestines contract further. “Sure. Take care, Mila,” she says without inflection and turns away, hopping down the three steps in one go. Mila watches her walk down the street until she disappears from view, but Dom doesn’t look back.

 

—-

 

The print interview is right in the middle of the Central district and it takes longer to get there than it does to do the interview. The building is one of those new steel and glass monstrosities, stretching up 40 stories. There’s even an elevator attendant who presses the button for her; the magazine apparently has the entire 38th floor. Thankfully, the interview goes off without a hitch: no one mispronounces salchow, Yuri is in a much better mood, and he’s brought Otabek along, though Otabek just sits outside the room in the waiting area until they’re done.

“You’d think he was your trophy husband instead of the number one ranked skater in the world,” Mila says to Yuri as they walk from the glass-walled conference room back towards reception. Otabek is reading something on his phone but looks up once they reach him. “Done with your press for the day?” Mila asks him.

“Thankfully,” Otabek says. He stands. “I don’t know how the two of you have done this for so long. I’ve never had so many reporters be so interested in who I’m dating.”

“The people want to know,” Mila says airily as they take the elevator down to the lobby. It’s just now 5 and well-dressed businessmen and women stream out around them into the street, where the watery sun still hangs onto the horizon.

“Do they _really_?” Otabek asks, squinting into the light. He holds out his arm for a cab but the afternoon crowd means every single one is full. “There’s never been an athlete or a celebrity whose dating history I’ve wanted to know.”

“Don’t pretend,” Yuri says. He slips his beanie on over the braids. “I’ve seen your collection of magazines with me on the cover from my junior days.”

Otabek blushes, though it’s hard to discern under the deep color of his skin. Mila’s never seen that happen before. She looks between the two of them. “Is that true? Please tell me it’s true.”

“It’s true,” Otabek says, glaring at a poker-faced Yuri, “but Yura _promised_ he would never mention it to anyone.” 

“I forgot,” Yuri says, all nonchalant. “We’ll probably have to go over a few blocks if we want to get a cab.” He heads off without waiting.

Mila and Otabek fall in behind him. Otabek is still a bit red but he doesn’t seem unduly upset, so Mila says to him, “I’m not going to lie: it’s very comforting to know you’re a normal person like the rest of us. I had wondered. But I’m not sure young Yuri was worth the obsession.”

Otabek smiles. “Of course he was. Though he’s going to catch hell for letting that particular humanizing fact slip once we get home.”

Yuri drops back to walk alongside them and slips his hand into Otabek’s. “That reminds me. Mila, would you like to come over for dinner?”

“I have absolutely no interest in getting caught in the middle of this,” she says. She sees a cab with its light on and flags it.

“We’re leaving in just a few days. Please come,” Yuri says. He makes a sad face at her.

Mila rolls her eyes as the cab stops in front of them. “Fine. Quit pouting, I’ll come.”

It’s very strange, Mila thinks on the cab ride over to Lilia/Yuri’s apartment, to have Yuri be the one in a relationship for a change. The whole time she’s known him (so, since he was 11), Yuri has never dated. That’s always been Mila’s realm; Yuri had been the one to tease her when she was in a relationship and comfort her when she ended one. But then, it’s rarely been serious. Nick and Dom are the only two people Mila’s dated that Yuri has met, and that was only once with Nick and a few times with Dom. Otabek has so quickly become part of their circle in the same way Yuuri did—except Viktor is older and more removed from them. And he isn’t Yuri. 

If it were anyone other than Otabek, it would likely be awful. Mila considers the two of them in the rearview from where she sits in the front. They’re not touching but, as she watches, Yuri leans over to show Otabek something on his phone. Otabek laughs at it, hand closing over Yuri’s on the phone, and Yuri says something quietly to Otabek. He butts his nose gently against Otabek’s chin before sitting back in his seat on the other side of the car. Otabek looks out the window. Both of them are smiling.

Mila looks away, her chest aching in a hollow sort of way. Then they’re pulling up outside Lilia’s and Mila has to scramble through her wallet to hand the driver some cash before they pile out of the car and head on up to the apartment.

Otabek goes straight to the kitchen while Yuri grabs his speakers from his bedroom. Mila watches him pull shit out of the fridge for a second—he’s been in the city for barely 24 hours and he already stocked up?—before it occurs to her to offer to help.

“I’ve gotten into the habit of prepping everything ahead of time so there isn’t much to do,” Otabek says. Sure enough, the containers are all full of diced onions and sliced peppers and already-marinated meat.

“You’re such an athlete,” Mila says, impressed. 

“It’s much easier since I’m so busy,” Otabek says. He grabs a pan from the fancy hanging rack Lilia has over the range, embedded in the middle of her granite-topped island, and starts oil heating in it.

Mila helps herself to a beer from Lilia’s fridge and sits at the island to watch Otabek work. A line appears between his eyebrows as he concentrates, adding more vegetables than Mila thinks she’s ever seen along with a panoply of spices.

“I promise I’ll let this go if you really don’t want to talk about it,” she says to him after a bit, because it is her moral duty to tease Yuri as much as possible and this is _such_ a good chance, “but do you have those magazines here in Pita?”

Otabek laughs a little bit and looks over at her. “I don’t. They’re back in Almaty, safe under my bed.”

“Oh my god,” Mila says. “Under your bed and everything? You had it bad.”

“They were in the closet in my spare room and Yura found them there. Now they live under the bed.”

“Mint condition and still in their protective slips,” Yuri says, padding into the kitchen. He’s changed into leggings and a sleeveless hoodie. He sets the speakers on the counter. “He even has the copy of Zhizn where I had the bowl cut.”

“My favorite look on you,” Mila says.

“Only because it was your idea to get it cut that way in the first place,” Yuri says, annoyed. He’s fussing with his phone and the aux cord. “Beka, what the fuck did you do to these? The cord is busted.”

“You need to plug them into the wall,” Otabek says calmly. He doesn’t look up from tossing the pan, bright contents blurring into a rainbow arc.

“I already—oh, fuck.” Yuri snatches up the dangling plug and slaps it into the outlet; the speakers light up immediately and a second later _Clair de lune_ starts playing at top volume. Yuri scrambles for his phone to turn it down. Mila raises her eyebrows at him. “I was listening to it on my run,” Yuri mutters.

“You listen to classical music on your run? Who the fuck are you?” 

“It’s calming. And Yakov’s always on us about _self-regulation_.”

Mila shrugs and drains her beer. “If it works for you, I suppose.”

Yuri gets himself a beer from the fridge and joins her at the island. He pops it opens and takes a sip before he says, “You can’t tease Beka about the magazines unless you come clean about your collection of SKA shit.”

“I’m sure Beka isn’t interested in that,” Mila says breezily. She exchanges her empty for Yuri’s full bottle and drinks from it. Yuri makes an angry noise like a cat and lunges after it but she successfully holds him off with one hand in the middle of his chest. Otabek watches them as he tastes the dish, laughing under his breath. “I thought that height was supposed to give you an advantage over me,” she taunts Yuri.

“Shut up,” he grunts. He makes one more swipe for the can and then gives up and just gets a new beer. “It’s not my fault you’re eerily strong for a woman,” he says. 

“For a woman?” Mila gives him the finger. Yuri glares at her and turns back to Otabek.

“Beka,” Yuri says, “Mila had a whole bookcase—”

“Don’t, Yura,” Mila interjects but of course he ignores her.

“—entirely devoted to this one hockey player, before he even was on a decent league. She’s lucky he got signed to SKA or it would have been monumentally embarrassing. And when she was done with him, she didn’t even sell it all! She burned them!”

It’s Mila’s turn to say, “It was your idea,” in a cross tone. After the final break-up, they’d made a big bonfire at Mila’s last apartment, which had had a little outdoor area out back, and thrown each magazine and paper and limited edition poster into it and gotten roaring drunk. She hadn’t even been that mad, but it’s hard to deny the satisfaction she’d felt watching each iteration of Nick’s face shrivel up into ash and blow away.

Otabek’s brows have pulled together as he listens. He looks caught between amusement and concern. “What happened?” he asks. “Why did you burn them? I feel like I’m missing some details.”

“Yuri _conveniently_ left out that I was engaged to this man and I burned the collection after we broke up,” Mila says. Yuri sticks out his tongue at her and then promptly looks ashamed of himself, both for the childish gesture and for bringing Nick up.

Otabek has decided on concern. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Mila waves a hand. “It was ages ago. I’ve known him since we were kids—it was basically an arranged marriage. Unfortunately we both grew up into headstrong adults and decided we weren’t the marrying kind.” 

It’s the extremely pared-down version of the story. Otabek just says, “Well.” Then, “This is ready—Yura, can you set the table?”

Mila takes her beer out to the balcony while Yuri does so. She’s very rarely been to Lilia’s apartment—only for end-of-season parties—and if it didn’t include living with Lilia, Mila would envy Yuri. It’s in the nicest part of the Admiralteysky district, which is nice enough in the first place, and the balcony looks directly out towards the Neva. Mila imagines growing up with a view of St. Petersburg like this one—she probably would have been a poet or an artist, not a skater whose scenery tends to be variations on gyms and rinks and airports. 

The screen door behind her opens and shortly after Yuri joins her at the railing. The last rays of the sun turn his braid, pulled over shoulder to graze at the hoodie’s zip, into a blaze of gold. He doesn’t say anything and they look out at the city together. The street lights start to wink on, one by one.

“Sorry I brought up Nick,” Yuri mutters eventually.

“It’s fine,” Mila says. “It wouldn’t even bother me, except.” The paint on the railing is peeling, the single flaw in the otherwise immaculate outlook. She picks at it with a nail. “He’s going to be there. At Inga’s party, that is.”

Yuri looks over at her right away. “What?! Why?”

“Yuliya apparently insisted.”

“That’s bullshit.” Yuri turns so he’s leaning back against the railing. He crosses his arms. “You should tell her to go fuck herself.”

“I’m not gonna do that, Yura. This is Inga’s big night,” Mila sighs. “It’ll be fine. We left things on good terms.”

“Still. Call me if—anything happens. If he tries to talk shit. If you need someone to talk some sense into you.”

He’s biting his lip. “Do you think I’m going to do something stupid?” Mila says.

“I don’t know. He has a weird hold over you, even now.”

“I can control myself!” As soon as she says it, she knows it isn’t true. More often than not, Yuri is the one to reality check her, the same way she does for him.

The look Yuri gives her suggests he knows this just as well as she does. “You can call me, is what I’m saying,” he says.

“I’m eating now!” Otabek calls from inside.

“Thank you,” Mila says to Yuri.

“Of course, grandma,” Yuri says. “Let’s eat dinner.”

 

—-

 

Mila wakes up the next morning with a horrible cold (a classic postseason parting gift), so Tashka lets her ditch the last TV interview and the rest are over the phone, which means they can be done in her ratty hoodie from her couch. She’s sick enough that she tells Yuri to stay away, so she doesn’t see him before he leaves for Japan. The day they’re leaving, he texts her from the airport. `_i’ll see you in two weeks. just imagine me stepping on your foot anytime you’re tempted to do anything dumb. if that doesn’t work then call me!!!!!!!_`

Mila sends back a middle finger emoji, but she can’t pretend to be unaffected by the gesture. Yuri’s grown up so much just in the last few months. Though she would never admit it to his face, sometimes Mila thinks he might be more mature than she is.

She avoids disaster by continuing her routine of no-pants couch-lounging for rest of the week. She spends a solo hour or two at the rink every day, propped up by cold medicine during the day and knocked out by Corvalol at night. It’s enough to keep Yakov off her back. The ice gets overtaken by classes and workshops during the off-season, buzzing with excited children and swaggering teens. 

When she feels a bit better, she adds her usual cycling class into the mix as well. She’d wholeheartedly jumped on the trend when it made it to Pita a few years back—it’s like the group exercise version of clubbing. 

There’s no substitute for the real thing, though, so she and Luc finally do their big night out the night before she has to go out the countryside. They hit all of their favorite places (except Achtung—Luc hadn’t questioned her when she’d starting nixing it a few months ago). The selfie she posts to Instagram gets her over 100,000 likes for the first time. She dances the rest of the cold off under the bright lights. It feels like her final night as a free woman before being sent to the gallows.

 

—-

 

Mila is awoken bright and early on the morning of the 31st by the apartment buzzer. She stumbles out of bed and towards the front door, Luc yelling “Make that stop or I’ll murder the whole street!” from his bedroom. 

Mila punches the intercom button. “Yes? Who’s there?” 

“Ludmila. It’s Ivann Pavlovich. I’m here to take you to your mother’s house.”

“Oh, fuck,” Mila swears, and then realizes she’s still holding down the intercom button. “Ah—I mean, yes, hello. I’ll be out in ten minutes.”

Her suitcase is mostly packed, but of course she forgot her nice dress is still at the dry-cleaners. There’s nothing to be done about it; she’ll just have to borrow something of Inga’s to wear at the gala itself. She grabs her charger, throws her newly-returned SKA sweatshirt over her t-shirt and leggings, and lugs her shit out of her bedroom. Luc is so used to Mila disappearing for weeks on end during the season he probably won’t even notice that Mila is gone; still, for good measure, Mila yells, “I’m going to Lomonosov for two weeks! See you later!”

“Say hi to the duchess for me!” Luc yells back as Mila slams out of the apartment.

Ivann Pavlovich (Mila assumes the squat man with the salt and pepper beard just outside her door is her mother’s chauffeur) is standing on the sidewalk, wearing an absurd uniform complete with a little hat. He moves forward immediately to take Mila’s suitcase.

She pulls back instinctively. “Thank you. I got it.”

He inclines his head and opens the trunk for her; he hovers just to the side as Mila hoists the suitcase in, and then rushes around to the door of the sleek black sedan to open it for her.

“Thanks,” Mila says, even though it’s weird as fuck, and slides on into the cool interior. The leather is pristine and it still smells like new car. She cracks the window for some fresh air before putting in her earbuds and queuing up some music.

It’s not a long drive, and this early there’s little traffic. They speed through the residential area, skirting the central district. Mila closes the window once they’re on the highway, especially once they reach the bridge over the bay. The water is flat and gray under the colorless spring sky. The steady rhythm of the car eventually lulls her into an early-morning stupor.

Distantly, she knows she’s dreaming when she looks across and sees Yuri sitting in the other seat. For some reason, he’s wearing his Agape costume from his 2015 short program. He looks over at her and his eyes are startlingly, unnervingly green.

“Why are you wearing that?” Mila asks him.

“It seemed like the best choice,” Dream-Yuri says. “Don’t do anything fucking stupid, okay?”

“You’ve said that so many times that my subconscious is manifesting you to tell me one more time. I think I’ve got it.”

“I’m just saying. You have a singular talent for identifying exactly the wrong thing to do sometimes.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Mila says. “I want to wake up now.”

“It’s your dream, asshole. You manifested me.”

Mila rolls her eyes—even in her dreams, Yuri is just as insufferable as always—and then she’s suddenly jerked awake by a car horn, blaring long and loud. Up front, Ivann has his fist smashed into the middle of his steering wheel. He’s yelling out his window at another car as it disappears rapidly down the street. Mila’s momentarily disoriented by their surroundings and then remembers where she is. They’re out of the city and into the countryside; trees and wide, empty roads stretch in every direction. If Mila remembers correctly, they’re almost to the house.

Ivann sees that she’s awake and turns to apologize. “These kids don’t know how to drive,” he says as he goes on. “They think no one can see them. Reckless.” He _tsks_.

Mila scrubs her hands over her face. “It’s fine,” she says. She rolls down the window again. The air smells so much cleaner here, weighty with moisture. She inhales deeply. _I spend too much time in the city_ , Mila thinks, not for the first time, but if her options are her tiny apartment in an unfashionable part of St. Petersburg or her mother’s cavernous house in the beautiful countryside, she’s sticking with the apartment.

“Ah, here we are,” Ivann says, and makes a turn onto the estate.

Mila had very conveniently avoided considering this part, the part where she’s actually here and has to see her mother for the first time since last summer. As it tends to do, it ended in tears. _This time, it’s about Inga_ , Mila says to herself, resolute. _I will not fuck anything up for her because of my pride._

They pull slowly up the gravel drive and the house gradually emerges from its cloak of greenery. It’s just as hulking as Mila remembers: four stories of carved stone and sparkling glass, the high-pitched roof arching over all of it. It’s so fucking gratuitous. Christ. Mila is glad to see that the grounds are in good order, at least; the rose garden, on western side of the house, is in bloom.

They come to a stop just in front of the entryway. The potted shrubs lining the short staircase are blooming. _How lucky that everything is blooming right during the gala_ , Mila thinks as she gets out of the car, and then she realizes that it would be just like Yuliya to have planned the landscaping around what might be blooming on this day, years later, when her cherished younger daughter graduates from the most prestigious ballet school in Russia.

The thought sours her mood, until the oak front door cracks open and Inga runs out. “Mila!” she calls, and then she’s down the steps and throwing herself into Mila’s arms. Mila hugs her back with all her strength.

“Hello, bunny,” she says, and kisses her on each cheek. “It’s so good to see you.”

“It’s been _so long_ ,” Inga says. She pulls back so she can look up at Mila. “Did you grow?”

“No, dearest, you’re just as tiny as ever.”

“I’m not tiny, you’re tall. Oh, I can’t wait to show you everything,” Inga says. Her eyes are sparkling with excitement. “Come in, come in.”

“I’ll just—” Mila turns to grab her stuff, but Ivann has already unloaded her bag and suitcase and has one in either hand. He looks reluctant to relinquish them

“Ivann will take care of it,” Inga says. “Come on!”

Mila submits to letting Inga drag her up the steps and into the house. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust once they’re inside. The foyer is such a contrast to the exterior; it’s blanketed in rich carpets and tapestries, muffling all sound and absorbing most of the light. Mila’s glad when they go up the stairs right away. Yuliya and Grigory take up most of the second floor, so they go on up to the third, where Mila and Inga’s bedrooms were. Inga’s moved from her old room, right next to Mila’s, to one in the eastern wing. It’s huge, with its own sitting room and a truly ridiculous bathroom done in gold and porcelain.

“Now that you don’t live here, there’s no reason for me to stay in the western wing. It’s so drafty in the winter,” Inga says when she sees Mila’s face.

“I’m sure the size of the room helped, too,” Mila observes mildly. “And you’re only here when you’re not at school.”

“If I don’t get into a company, I may be here a lot more often.”

“You will, Ingri,” says Mila. “Don’t be silly. Now show me your dress.”

There’s two to show: Inga’s party outfit, which is a Vilshenko monstrosity of silk and and chiffon and roses. “Ingri,” Mila says, “Vilshenkos are thousands of rubles.”

Inga slips the dress back into her armoire. “Mama approved it. And I thought I might as well shoot for the stars.”

“Well, you certainly landed among them. All right, and for the gala?”

“It’s Profokiev, the ‘Classical Symphony,’ so traditional—” It’s a blue-purple outfit, with the usual full tutu. The collar is stiff with jewels.

Mila takes it from Inga. “Good god, Ingri, it weighs a ton. How do you dance in it?!”

“Probably the same way you jump through the air and don’t fall and break your nose on the ice.”

“Not where people can see, at least.” She hands the costume back. “Where are Yuliya and Grigory?”

“You know she hates it when you call her that.” Inga is frowning.

“What, her name?” Mila shrugs. “She’s used to it by now.” She goes to the window; Inga’s room faces the back garden, which is looking mostly brown and sodden, with a few flares of pale green. The staff have set out the summer furniture, which strikes Mila as a little overconfident.

Inga gives her a meaningful look, but lets it go. “They’re on a drive. Grigory bought a new Porsche.”

“Another one?! Where does he even keep them?”

“They renovated the stable.”

Mila shakes her head. “Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to have so much money that you don’t even know what to do with it.”

Inga sits on her bed. “You could have.”

“Ingri.” It’s the only argument they ever have. Sometimes Mila thinks that Inga simply chooses not to understand because it’s easier than the truth. “The money comes with strings. It always has and it always will. You were lucky that you liked Yuliya’s plan for your life. It was easier for me to turn it all down and not give a single fuck about what she wanted.” Mila joins Inga on the bed, leaning against one of the sturdy oak posts.

Inga stretches her legs out over Mila’s and taps her big toe on Mila’s ankle. “I know you can’t imagine letting anyone do anything for you. But you can accept help once in awhile without it erasing your independence.”

“It doesn’t matter in this case, because it isn’t about me. It’s about the fact that if I accept anything from Yuliya, she’ll think she has a say over my life.”

“All right,” Inga says. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s eat breakfast.”

“Please. I’m craving Auntie Vlada’s _syrniki_.” Mila stands.

“I know. That’s why I asked her to make them for you.” Inga’s grinning widely. Mila pulls her off the bed and into a hug.

“What did I ever do to deserve a sister like you?” Mila says.

“I want to know the same thing,” Inga says into her hair. She pulls back. “It must have been something really evil.”

“You—” Mila tries to smack her but Inga scampers for the door. Her laughter echoes through the hallway and Mila chases after her, all the way down the stairs.

 

—-

 

Vlada, the cook, is delighted to see Mila again and makes her and Inga a little breakfast picnic to take out to the orchard. The ground is still pretty soggy from the lingering thaw, so Mila borrows Inga’s extra galoshes and they tromp out into the grounds with a basket of sweet _syrniki_ dumplings and a flask of hot tea. Inga has the foresight to bring a throw for the ground, and they sit in the emerging sunshine and eat their meal.

Inga fills Mila in on the rest of the details for the gala and the party. Apparently, Yuliya is very pleased with the amount of RSVPs: Lilia is coming, which should be an enjoyable encounter for Mila, and several of the most prestigious families in the St. Petersburg ballet scene. (Inga doesn’t bring up Nick and the Zahkarins, and Mila isn’t about to.) There’s still work to be done on favors and notes and menus, but by and large the preparations are complete.

Mila spends the rest of the day reacquainting herself with the house and the grounds. Her old bedroom, vacated some seven years earlier, is largely untouched. The walls are still a pale purple and the white shag rug is still in the middle of the floor. Her suitcase is placed neatly on top of the freshly made bed. The imminent reunion with her mother makes Mila change into a dress and brush out her hair and even put on a little bit of mascara. Yuliya will find faults regardless, but Mila supposes she can eliminate some of the more obvious ones.

The sun is setting when Mila looks out her bedroom window and sees a bright yellow Porsche two-seater trundling up the avenue. It pulls off around to the east, where the former stables are, and Mila checks her hair one more time in the mirror before going down the hall to Inga’s room.

“I just saw them pull up,” Inga says when Mila comes in. She’s sitting in front of her vanity, pinning her hair up in a bun. “It’s almost dinnertime, so we should go down.”

“Do we have to?” Mila says. It’s not a good look, asking her younger sister to reassure her, but Mila is suddenly overcome with a desire to run and hide.

Inga eyes her in the mirror, sympathetic. “You didn’t bring pearls, did you?” she asks. When Mila shakes her head, Inga opens a drawer and rummages through it. “Here.” She holds a string of perfectly even white pearls. “You just need a little something more.”

Mila obediently puts the necklace on, and follows her sister down the stairs and to the sitting room. Mila feels like an actress in a play as she perches on an armchair and pretends to read one of the numerous dusty books scattered around the room. _And now, the scene where the two happy daughters await the return of their loving mother._ Elsewhere in the house, doors open and shut as Yuliya and Grigory enter and go up to their rooms to change. Their low voices filter through the halls. Mila can’t pick out specifics but she’s certain she hears her own name at least once.

She keeps her eyes on the book—she didn’t absorb a single word, not even the title—and Inga places a steadying hand on her shoulder. Mila looks up. Inga is texting with her other hand. “You’re absurd,” Mila says quietly. _What a multitasker_. Inga looks at her in surprise.

“What makes you say that?”

“Nothing,” Mila says, laughing under her breath. She looks back down at the play and succeeds in turning four whole pages without reading any of it before the muffled sounds of steps on the main staircase pull her back to the present.

“Ingri, where are you, dearest?” comes a honeyed voice. As always, her mother is shorter than Mila remembers; the woman who looms so large in her memory barely scrapes five feet in life, though her elegantly coiffed mahogany hair does a good show of adding a few more inches. She pauses in the doorway and surveys her daughters. “Mila,” she says. “You made it.”

“Of course I did,” Mila says. “Ivann made sure of it.”

Inga cuts in right away. “Isn’t it wonderful, to be together again?”

“Certainly, dearest.” The three of them look at each other for a moment, then Yuliya extends a hand out to Mila. “Well, come and kiss your mother, then.”

Mila rises and goes to her. She kisses her mother’s cheeks, painted with generous amounts of foundation, briefly. _And now the scene in which the eldest daughter, so long estranged, returns to her mother’s welcoming arms._ Mila steps back. “You look well,” she says.

Yuliya’s eyes pass over MIla. “You look very... healthy. But then, your frame was always much more athletic.” Mila says nothing. She’ll take _athletic_ over _mannish_ and _unfeminine_ , both of which have made appearances in the past. “Let’s eat. We’ve had such a long day.” Yuliya gestures to Grigory, who has come to stand in the doorway. He looks the same as always: the human personification of an aging basset hound, with drooping jowls adorned by a sparse salt-and-pepper beard. His glasses perch on the very end of his nose.

“Mila,” he says. “I hope your journey was pleasant. The ride in the BMW should have been very smooth, if Ivann handled it properly.”

“Er—yes, it was,” Mila says. She wouldn’t know the difference between a BMW handled properly and one handled improperly, but Ivann didn’t wreck the car, so Mila supposes that counts.

“Shall we?” Inga says. She’s joined them in the doorway.

“Lead the way, dearest,” Yuliya says, and they process into the dining room.

“It’s very proper of you to wait in the sitting room,” Grigory says as they sit at the end of the large table. Yuliya has recently redone the room in rich shades of red and brown. It feels not unlike what Mila imagines being in a womb would feel like. “I like that. Makes this feel like a real house.”

“Well, if that’s what it takes, I’m glad to provide,” Mila says. She wastes no time in filling her glass from the carafe on the table. Inga, seated beside her, presses her foot on top of Mila’s. Mila takes a lengthy drink; as long as someone is around to step on her foot, Mila can’t go too wrong.

If Grigory picks up on the sarcasm, he doesn’t let on. “Your skate at Worlds was very fascinating,” he says. Plates of white fish with potatoes and asparagus, all swimming in butter, are placed before them. “The costume was much nicer than some of your others.”

Mila doesn’t take the bait. “Thank you,” she says. She smiles, and chases a bite of fish with wine, and when Yuliya speaks again, it’s to ask Inga about the status of the RSVPs. She doesn’t look at Mila for the rest of the meal.

Mila flees to her bedroom the moment the dessert plates are cleared. She kicks her flats off, sits in the lavender armchair by the window and props her feet up on the sill. It’s a familiar position, though the wine glass is a new addition. The moon is full and hangs low in the luminous sky outside the windowpane. Wisps of fog drift over the damp lawn. Mila longs for summer deep in her bones; this is always the time of year where the fickle clouds and rain start to weigh on her, and she wants it to be summer _now_. She wants to wear crop tops and stay up all night and go dancing with Yuri and let the heat and wind take her wherever they choose.

But before she can do that, she has to survive the next two weeks. 

The wine has her drowsing in the chair before long—yet, the moment she lies down, she feels more awake than ever. The bed, twice the size of hers back in the city, seems to stretch for cold miles on either side of her. Mila tries all her usual tricks: she punches each pillow into her preferred shape, she untucks all the blankets and burritos them around her, she fashions one of her workout headbands into a makeshift eye mask. None of it works. She’s left staring up at the vaulted ceiling.

“It’s been a week, Mila,” she says to it. “You can’t claim jet lag anymore.”

Unsurprisingly, that also doesn’t work, so Mila does what she always did as a kid: she puts on her slippers, grabs a pillow, and pads down the hall to Inga’s room. It’s in total darkness; the moonlight doesn’t reach this part of the house, and Mila finds her way into the bed by feel. Inga wakes up enough to move over and allow Mila to curl up against her back.

It still takes awhile, but eventually Mila drifts off to the sound of Inga’s steady breathing. In her dreams, it’s the sighing of a lonely wind, gusting through the forest outside.

 

—-

 

Mila manages to survive the next few days by saying as little as possible. Yuliya prefers to communicate in statements rather than questions anyway, and Mila finds that if she takes the needling comments at face value, she can pretend that her mother is a normal person. Inga runs interference as much as she can, but Mila can spend only so much time alone in her purple bedroom before she starts to lose her mind. She doesn’t even play at trying to sleep in there; without fail, the night finds her creeping down the hall to crawl into Inga’s bed. Inga never objects.

On Monday morning, though, Mila is still drowsing in bed while Inga packs for her return to the city. She’s opened the curtains and the gray of the weekend is finally burning off. 

“Is there still that little gazebo at the western edge of the orchard?” Mila asks.

“I think so. I never go out there. What did you do with my jacket? The one with the hood?” Inga rummages through her closet. Her gala outfit is packed carefully in a garment bag, hanging over the back of the vanity chair.

“It’s on the back of the door.”

“It goes in the closet, for future reference,” Inga says. Then, “I need a favor.”

Mila sits up. “What is it?”

“The notes, the ones that are going to accompany the favors. They haven’t been written.”

“‘They haven’t been written,’” Mila mocks. “You mean you haven’t written them.”

Inga shoots her a look. “Yes, I suppose.”

Mila sees where this is going. “And you want me to write them for you.”

Inga comes over and stands at Mila’s side of the bed, pinning on earrings as she speaks. “Your penmanship is so much better than mine. And they’re short, just a brief ‘thank you for your support’, all of them the same. Would you?” She kneels before Mila, chin in hands, pleading look on her face.

“Of course,” Mila says, laughing. My god, she’s such a sucker for a doe-eyed expression. “Send me what they’re supposed to say and I’ll get them done.”

“You’re an angel,” Inga says. She drops a kiss on Mila’s hand, buried in the covers, and then shoots up to standing. “I’m off. Be nice to Mama.”

“You can’t make me promise that,” Mila says, but Inga’s already grabbed her bags and run out the door.

Inga texts her directions and Mila goes in search of the specified materials. The paper and pens are on the work table in the sitting room, and Mila feels the first tremors of regret once she sees exactly _how much_ paper there is. _It’s for Inga. It’s all for Inga_. She sits down and gets to work.

Fifty notes in and her hand is cramping and her back aches and the tremors have bloomed into a full earthquake of regret. She can’t remember the last time she wrote anything by hand, especially not several hundred thank-you notes. She carries on, pen scritchting against the heavy cardstock, though her mood sours further with each note—notes for people Mila either doesn’t know or doesn’t care to know, the new elites Yuliya had deemed appropriate company once she married Grigory and ascended the social ladder. Chosen for their reflection on her standing and not on whether they care about Inga in the least. Some of them have probably never even met her. God, how it makes Mila sick.

Of course, then, Yuliya chooses to enter the sitting room. She has a cup of tea in her hand and feigns disinterest in Mila at first, drifting along the wall of books. The late morning light picks out the red highlights in her hair and it throws her face into a topography of lines and crevices when, at long last, she looks towards Mila. She advances slowly towards the table.

“You haven’t been practicing,” Yuliya says. She picks up a card, pinching the edge between thumb and forefinger as to not smudge the ink. 

Mila scratches on and flicks another card into the stack. “Why would I need to?”

“It’s a good skill.” Yuliya sits in another of the high-backed chairs. Mila spends the next several notes steeling herself for whatever veiled insult Yuliya will lob at her next, but her mother remains silent. Outside, the birds are singing. Mila starts to relax. Then, Yuliya says, “Are you seeing anyone?”

Mila sighs. “No,” she says.

“Hm,” Yuliya says. “Nikolai Zakharin will be at the party.”

“Is that so,” says Mila, inflectionless.

“Have you been keeping up with the news? SKA had quite the season.”

Mila hadn’t, but last week she’d caved and bought a copy of Zhizn simply because Nick’s face had been plastered across the cover. He’d had his best season yet, scoring 129 points in 124 playoff games. “I haven’t kept up,” she says. “I’m very busy, as you might imagine.”

“Winning bronze medals. Yes.” Yuliya is examining her nails. 

Mila’s patience is evaporating by the second. She snatches another blank from the pile. “Is there something you’d like to say to me?” she says. Her tone is calm, pleasant, even—they could be talking about anything, the weather or the state of the roads. Mila refuses to be the one who breaks first.

Yuliya looks at her in surprise. “No, dear. Why?”

“It seems like there might be.”

“It is very sad to me, Mila,” Yuliya says serenely, “that I see you so rarely and when I do, you want to pick a fight with me. I have only ever wanted the best for you.”

“And even though I’ve told you many times that skating is what I want, you still act as if I’ve wounded you by having a very lucrative and successful—yes, _successful_ —career doing so.” Mila keeps a smile on her face during the whole speech. The stack of paper seems like it’s actually shrinking. She stretches her hand for a few moments before continuing.

“You lost all that you could have had with Nikolai,” Yuliya says. “You could have been a mother.”

“I still could be.”

“When, though?” A hint of melancholy creeps into Yuliya’s voice. “After you’ve worked your body to the bone?”

Mila caps the pen and sets it aside. “Skating is just as taxing on the body as ballet.” Her temper is rising and she has to work hard to speak evenly.

“That’s different,” Yuliya says.

“How so?”

“It just is, dear,” Yuliya says, and Mila finally breaks.

“Because it’s what _you_ had wanted, because it was the future _you_ wanted for yourself,” Mila snaps. The walls of books absorb the half-shout immediately. Yuliya looks like Mila’s slapped her but she doesn’t deny it. Mila knows she won’t, because it’s true. 

Yuliya stands, pushing herself up with a hand flat on the table. She leaves without saying another word. Mila reaches for the next card but the pen slips on the ‘y’ in ‘thank you’ and a great big slash of ink mars the creamy white paper. 

Mila just stares at it for a second. Then, she crumples it in her fist in a single, violent gesture, and lets it fall soundlessly onto the carpet. She picks up the next card and continues writing.

 

—-

 

They don’t talk until the gala. Mila comes down for dinner but otherwise she keeps to the third floor or the grounds. Inga asks what happened and Mila tells her—the same as always. They fought. They give each other the silent treatment until they start talking again. This is how it’s been done since Mila can remember.

The evening before the gala finds Mila standing in the middle of Inga’s room, trying on every single one of her dresses, attempting to find one both appropriate and well-fitting. Since Inga’s torso is about the size of one of Mila’s thighs, it’s exactly as hard as Mila expected.

“That’s an exaggeration,” Inga says when Mila voices this thought. “My hips are the same size as yours.”

“The difference is you have a waist,” Mila teases. Inga throws another dress at her.

“Shut up and try that one on,” she says, and Mila does so. 

Despite her joking, Mila really does love her body. She asks a lot of it and, more often than not, it delivers. Except for days like today, she thinks, as she tries to force yet another unyielding zipper up. “This one doesn’t like my shoulders,” she says.

“Let me. Once Inga’s hands are on the zipper, it glides up effortlessly. She guides Mila towards the mirror and peeps over her shoulder. “That’s the one.”

Mila is inclined to agree. It’s just a simple A-line shift, made of lace, of all the things, but the fabric is so delicately wrought and lightweight that Mila barely feels its weight. Inga combs her finger through Mila’s hair so that it fans out just above her shoulders. “It’s perfect.”

“For the party, though,” Inga says. “The gala is formal and this is semi-formal at best.”

Mila sighs. The search continues. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Inga says, and beams.

 

—-

 

The gala is a glittering blur of pageantry, both in regards to the actual performances and the crowd. Mila makes no effort to remember names or faces; the important ones will appear at the party tomorrow, and anyway Yuliya doesn’t speak to too many people, preferring to just be seen by the other families. Mila feels like another one of her mother accessories, trailing behind her to their reserved seats in the grand tier of the cavernous Mariinsky.

Inga is incredible. Mila isn’t surprised. She moves across the stage and through the air as if she has wings. The choreography is gorgeous; Mila’s sure she would love it even if Inga wasn’t her sister. She springs to her feet the moment they finish, applauding and whooping. She glances over at Yuliya once she sits back down, who’s clapping loudly as well, and sees tears glimmering in the corners of her mother’s eyes. She looks away quickly.

Inga is mobbed by well-wishers afterwards and Mila doesn’t hesitate in using her elbows to fight through them so she can hug her sister. The plastic encasing her many flower bouquets crumples loudly between them but Inga hugs her tightly, one arm around her shoulders.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mila whispers in her ear. “You were so amazing.”

“Thank you, dearest,” Inga says. She wipes her eyes when she pulls away.

“No crying,” Mila says, because the only surefire way Mila cries is if Inga does. She focuses on brushing the tears from Inga’s face so it doesn’t spoil her eyeliner.

“Inga!” someone in the crowd calls. It could be anyone—it seems like half of St. Petersburg is crammed into the theatre lobby, and Mila steps back so Inga can hug yet another fan. She’s so self-possessed, way more than Mila was at 18 (freshly engaged and without a care in the world), and Mila’s heart feels like it might burst watching her gracefully accept congratulations after congratulations. Mila would never get sick of this, of watching the people she loves excel.

Mila even manages a civil conversation with Yuliya on the way back to Lomonosov. Grigory is driving (“I love an excuse to take the BMW out,” he said when they were leaving) and Inga is staying in the city for the night. Once Yuliya starts talking about the performances, Mila barely has to say a word, so it works perfectly. Mila treks up the stairs to Inga’s bedroom feeling very happy with herself. Even if it takes her ages to fall asleep, the warmth of her pride and contentment are good company until she does.

 

—-

 

The party is the next day and Mila collides with Vlada the moment she sets foot on the ground floor. The cook’s basketful of herbs go flying, scattering thyme and rosemary and sage across the carpet

“My goodness, I’m so sorry,” Vlada cries, scrambling after her basket.

“That’s all right,” Mila says and helps her gather the herbs. That, Mila thinks as she follows her to the kitchen to grab a pastry for breakfast, is probably an indicator of how the day will go.

It is. Inga comes back not long after and then Yuliya appears and both of them are put to work arranging the favors on the huge oak table in the foyer. There are little chocolates Yuliya purchased herself in Switzerland, soaps from the Galeria in the city center, pottery from the coast, little dancer figurines, and of course the infamous notes. All of the items have to be bundled in little handwoven baskets just so; by Yuliya’s third or fourth correction, Mila has to suppress her urge to scream.

Then there are garlands for the pillars in the foyer and streamers as well, and Polina drags out a rickety stepladder for them to use. The banquet table needs decorating, the sitting room needs a last dusting, and when it’s just a few hours before the party Mila is so, so happy to go up to Inga’s bedroom and throw herself on the bed while Inga gets ready. Her sister shakes her head when she comes back from the shower and Mila’s still laying down, scrolling through Instagram. “Get dressed and I’ll do your hair,” Inga says. 

Mila obeys, going to her bedroom to throw on the dress and some wedges and earrings and when she comes back to Inga’s room with her makeup bag, Inga’s hair is dry and she stands so Mila can sit. The curling iron is already heated, and Mila starts on her makeup while Inga goes to work on her hair.

A beautiful Mila emerges in the mirror before them, red hair floating in gentle curls at her chin, almond eyes framed by darkened lashes. The lace dress is so delicate; Mila runs a thumb over the hem. She very rarely tries to feel “pretty”—she would rather be memorable or striking, but in this dress, she likes the sensation. It’s tempered somewhat by the chunky heels and gold hoops, because Mila really can’t allow herself to completely tip over the edge and become the blushing Russian beauty she knows Yuliya would prefer.

They trade places when Mila’s hair is done and Mila braids Inga’s darker waves into a crown. “It’s like we’re at a sleepover,” Mila jokes as she pins it.

Inga pauses in dusting powder over her forehead. “Or like when we were kids.” She looks a little misty. Mila scrambles for the tissues.

“No crying allowed! That’s a rule for the whole weekend!” Mila orders. Inga laughs a bit and takes the tissue. The back of the braid already has wispies escaping and Mila reaches for the hairspray to tame them.

“I’m just so happy, Mila,” Inga says. She reaches back over her shoulder for Mila’s hand. “We both have what we’ve always wanted.”

Mila squeezes her hand, once, and turns away. It’s true, or it should be. It doesn’t feel true. Dom’s face swims to the front of her mind, unbidden.

Conveniently, this train of thought is interrupted by the sound of her phone vibrating. It’s buried in Inga’s duvet, and when she manages to dig it out, she’s more than a little surprised to see that Sara Crispino is calling her on Whatsapp. _That’s very odd. Must be a misdial_. She silences the call and tucks her phone into her bra for safekeeping.

“Let’s go down,” Inga says. She’s checking the braid in the mirror, not looking at Mila, and Mila takes a few deep breaths as she follows Inga out. It’s fine. Everything will be fine. She’ll see Nick, it’ll be fine, she won’t pick a fight with anyone, and Inga will never know anything was wrong.

Her determination is tested immediately. Because Yuliya is an utter slut for tradition, she insists that Mila and Inga to line up with her and Grigory on the front steps and actually _receive_ the guests. Mila tries to refuse but Yuliya has her Party Face on, all slack eyelids and upturned nose and a glint to her eyes that just _dares_ Mila to challenge her. 

“Please, Mila,” Inga says in a low voice as they file down the stairs and out to the garden just before the clock chimes 4. “I know it’s absurd. But it’s a small thing. You like talking to people.”

“I would pretend I didn’t like skating if it would spite her,” Mila hisses. 

“That’s why you started in the first place. And come on, I’ll be right there beside you.”

Inga sticks to her word for the first wave of guests, who are so decked out that Mila thinks she might have actually stumbled backwards in time and into a Dostoyevsky novel. The sun makes a rare appearance for this early in April and it glitters painfully across the jeweled rings that Mila resolutely bows her head over again and again.

“My eldest daughter, Ludmila Yermolayevna,” Yuliya keep saying in her low, honeyed voice. “You remember her, don’t you?” They’re all the new guard of friends Yuliya had deemed acceptable for their acquaintance when she married Grigory. How Mila hated them, and still does now. Their faces slide into one another, obsequious grin after simpering sneer. 

“Lovely to see you. Hello, yes, I’m little Mila. How are you? Thank you for coming,” she says woodenly to each of them. Her own smile is so rigid she worries it might crack. 

Inga squeezes her hand after there’s a lull in arrivals. “You’re doing so well,” she whispers. “I’ll get you a drink.” She scampers away, feet barely seeming to touch the ground, and Mila focuses on the next guest.

It’s Lilia Baranovskaya, looking dressed down in comparison to some of the other attendees, but as she gets closer Mila can see the detailed beadwork making up the bodice of her spring dress, and the skirt is a very fine silk. It likely cost more than Mila’s entire rent for a year.

“Lilia Pavlovna,” Yuliya says, taking her hand and bowing over it. “We are so pleased you’re here.”

“I’m always happy for the opportunity to support our new talent. We must make sure the arts continue to flourish in St. Petersburg.”

“You are exactly right, as always. I believe you know my eldest daughter, Ludmila Yermolayevna.”

“She knows me as Mila, Mother,” Mila says, and smiles at Lilia. “Good to see you away from the rink.”

“You as well.” Lilia smiles in return and it’s the first time Mila thinks she’s ever been of the receiving end of that expression from Lilia. Usually she’s sighing or frowning or snapping _Mila Babicheva, stop distracting Yuri this instant or I’ll destroy you immediately!_

“I’ve told Mila a hundred times that she’s a fool to not ask you for lessons,” Yuliya is saying. “One of the best dancers our country has ever seen and she doesn’t even try? Perhaps you can talk some sense into her.”

Mila bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. _I promised Inga, I promised Inga, I promised Inga._ “Mother,” she says evenly. “Lilia Pavlovna is very selective in her students. As she should be. And ballet was never a large part of my training.” Lilia remains expressionless but Mila wouldn’t blame her for being offended at such presumption.

“Despite my best efforts!” Yuliya casts her eyes heavenward.

“It’s true I have limited time,” Lilia says, “and every skater has their own path to follow. A skater of Mila’s talents is the only one equipped to make such decisions. And she hasn’t been wrong yet.”

For a moment, Mila is too shocked to speak, but then she gathers his wits and stammers out a simple, “Oh—thank you. Thank you for saying so.”

“If you say so, you must be right,” Yuliya says generously. 

“You will excuse me,” Lilia says, “but I haven’t congratulated your daughter yet.”

“By all means,” Yuliya says and Lilia inclines her head just slightly before looking at Mila. Mila mouths a tiny but heartfelt _thank you_. Lilia simply smiles blandly and sweeps away into the house.

“The masters will look on Inga with a new eye when they see someone of Lilia Pavlovna’s quality here,” Yuliya says in a low voice. Her eyes glitter, probably dancing with visions of the potential riches and prestige. Mila sighs.

“You know, you could just be happy for Inga, that her childhood hero is at the party in celebration of her graduation from the Vaganova.”

“People who settle for being happy for their children,” Yuliya says, “tend to realize that happiness never paid a single bill or guaranteed a secure future. But only after it’s much too late.”

Mila can’t help the bitter laugh that escapes her. Yuliya looks at her.

“You disagree?”

“Happiness never paid a bill in our house, certainly.”

“One day, Ludmila, you will appreciate how much I did for this family.” Yuliya is already raising a languid finger at the next arrival, her eyes hooded once more. “Then you’ll feel very sorry for how you’ve misjudged me all these years. Ah, my dear Kolya!”

Mila turns, and there he is: none other than Nikolai Zakharin, star right wing for SKA St. Petersburg and Mila’s ex-fiancee. Mila is not at all pleased to see him and even less pleased when she sees how hale and handsome he looks. He’s shaved his beard and is wearing a lovely dark blue suit that somehow manages to make his shoulder-to-waist ratio even more absurd than Mila remembers. 

The Zhizn spread from the magazine Mila had bought had been mostly about SKA’s recent wins and also featured several choice photos of him mostly naked and sunning himself somewhere that was decidedly not St. Petersburg. _I don’t like to talk about relationships, the 6’2” self-professed ‘hopeless romantic’ muses towards the end of our interview_ , the final page had read, _but a close friend of his assures us that he’s very close to being off the market—for good! Squeal!_ Mila had thrown it straight into the trash. Squeal, indeed. Like a mouse caught in a trap.

“Yuliya Mikhailovna,” Nikolai says, laughing, and, to Mila’s great dismay, his voice is that same rich texture, like melted chocolate poured over hazelnuts. “You know that everyone calls me Nick now. Thanks to your daughter.” He looks at Mila and smiles. Mila feels her treacherous cheeks flush and hates herself for it. How many women have fallen for that enchantingly lopsided grin? Too many.

“I was young and obsessed with American culture,” she says. “I’m sorry for the alienation it’s caused you. It must be very embarrassing, having an American nickname.” She hears the lilt in her own words, the change in her tone, and wishes Yuri were here to elbow her. _This asshole isn’t worth your flirting_ , he’d hiss, and then say something cutting and slightly offensive and drive everyone else away.

“On the contrary. There are a hundred million Kolyas in Russia and how many more Nikolais? It’s given me tremendous distinction. It’s probably how I got picked for the SKA in the first place. Really, I owe you my thanks.”

“A generic American name got you picked, not your distressingly broad shoulders?” Mila sweeps her eyes up and down in a once-over, and purses her lips. Yuri would be crushing her toes with his foot right about now. It’s like she can’t help herself, and the realization combined with the slight lift to Nick’s eyebrows make her snap out an abrupt, “Well, good to see you,” and turn on her heel and walk away.

She heads through the house and to the back garden, where most of the guests have gathered but Mila has eyes only for the chocolate fountain. No one could ever be upset while eating from a chocolate fountain, she reasons, so the company is likely to be much better.

She texts Yuri some cutting observations of the attendants with one hand while she dips marshmallows in the fountain, which is modeled to look like a swan taking flight. The chocolate cascades down from its spread wings. She smiles at the guests who drift past (because if she doesn’t, she’ll hear about it from Yuliya) but she also smears a little bit of the chocolate on her chin and lets her grin stray into the territory of ‘deranged’ and unsurprisingly no one sticks around to chat.

Yuri doesn’t respond to any of her texts, which is annoying. She snags a glass of champagne and wanders through the crowd towards the rose garden. The interspersed bushes are high and rambling and once she’s among them, she can let the happy face slide. It’s uniquely exhausting, being an interesting person without talking about skating.

Of course, because Mila’s the unluckiest person in the world, she steps past the first row of trellises and sees Nick admiring the freshly bloomed peach-colored roses that border the central flower bed. 

He sees her before she can run. “Mila,” he says. He’s unknotted his tie and his hands are in his pockets.

“Nick,” she says. She crosses her arms and then uncrosses them when she realizes how defensive she looks.

He flicks one of the unopened buds and turns towards her. “You look very well. Though that dress is rather short.”

Mila scoffs. “As always, your opinion on my appearance is neither needed nor desired.” She turns away and sits on the little stone bench under one of the juniper tree.

His smile deepens. “The same strength of will, I see.” 

He’s laughing at her. She drains her remaining champagne and puts the glass aside. The scent of the juniper berries is sharp and clarifying when she inhales.

“Inga danced very well last night,” Nick says. He steps a bit closer, hands still stuck in his pockets, the picture of leisure. “She’s the clear standout of the class. She’s had offers?”

“She will.” She’ll have her choice of the world’s best companies after a showing like that. 

“You must be very proud.”

Mila nods. The sun is starting to set. The light turns his hazel eyes to gold. For a moment, she thinks of how easy it would be. To let him approach. To let him touch her. To let everything unfold from there. Then Nick takes another step towards her, and Mila stands hastily. _I’m not that weak anymore._ She turns to go—then spares him one last glance over her shoulder. “Nice to see you, Nick,” she says, and leaves him standing there by the peach roses.

She takes deep breaths as she plunges further into the garden. The carefully pruned arches of small, climbing tea roses give way to the larger heirloom variants. The landscaping is much more wild here, and the flowers are just starting to open. Mila touches one of the fully bloomed with a single finger. Faintly, Mila remembers its name as being the Great Maiden’s Blush. It’s as larger as her palm and reddens to a gentle pink towards the center.

“Mila!” someone exclaims behind her. Mila turns. _For fuck’s sake, can’t I have a moment’s peace?!_ The sun blinds her for a moment and then she realizes that the person approaching through the rows of flowering arches is, of all people, Sara Crispino.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Mila says, rather more vehemently than necessary, as Sara reaches her. She’s wearing an emerald-colored dress that sets off the deep color of her skin magnificently, gilded in silhouette by the sun. The effect would be more striking if she wasn’t also wearing a giant, floppy hat.

The smile on Sara’s face doesn’t falter. “What a wonderful coincidence! St. Petersburg isn’t such a large city after all.”

“This is my house. This is my sister’s graduation party,” Mila says. She’s still struggling to grasp this incredible turn of events.

“You’re joking.” Sara’s eyes grow round under the brim of the felt hat. “It is?”

Mila laughs incredulously. She looks around, half-expecting Yakov or Yuuri or the queen of England herself to pop up. “Are you alone? Is Mickey here?”

“No, my friend from school in Naples graduated from the ballet academy last night. I’m here with her. Sorry, do you mean that _your_ sister also graduated last night?”

“Yes.” Out of all the people, out of all the times, Mila can’t believe that it’s Sara, here, now.

Sara shakes her head. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t see her name in the program.”

“Is that why you called me, earlier today?”

“I thought I might see if you wanted to meet up in the city. But this works too, I suppose.” Sara laughs, her eyes crinkling up. “It feels like we’re in a movie.”

It feels like a sign. Mila looks at Sara, considering. Sara, still smiling, looks back, letting her. 

“Well,” says Mila. “Since you’re here... perhaps you can help me with something.”

It’s relatively simple to finagle a bottle of champagne out of Vlada, especially with how trustworthy Sara’s face looks, and Mila snags two glasses from the cupboard as they head back outside and towards the orchard. Sara exclaims over the roses as they pass through the garden, and again when she sees the blossoms on the apple trees.

“Did you grow up here?” Sara asks once they reach the gazebo. Mila pops the champagne, cork arcing away into the brush, and pours them each a glass.

“Not really. My mother married my stepfather when I was fourteen and we moved then. I was only here a few months before I moved back into the city to train.” 

“There’s so much space,” Sara marvels. “I’m not sure I would have started skating. I’d’ve been a poet or a painter or something.” Mila laughs under her breath, and Sara looks over at her. “Is that silly?”

“No, I think that too—in St. Petersburg, though. This much room makes me anxious.” The words come easily. It’s true: the gazebo grounds the edge of the estate; otherwise, it would feel too wild, too empty—just wet earth and damp air. 

“We never had so much as a patch of grass growing up,” Sara is saying. “We’d play ball in the street with other kids. The first time I got on the ice, it was the most open space I’d seen other than the ocean.”

“You didn’t consider diving?” Mila asks. She can’t resist a bit of teasing.

“No.” Sara smiles again. “I’m terrified of swimming.”

“Let me guess—sharks?”

Sara sighs. “I’m so predictable.”

The unexpected self-deprecation and Sara’s forlorn, wry expression shocks a real laugh out of Mila. Sara looks over, smiling. Just then, Mila’s phone buzzes, the vibration rattling through her breastbone. She looks to see a message from Viktor. “Sorry,” she says to Sara before swiping it open.

Viktor’s sent only a video; Mila hits play and turns up the volume. It looks like it’s shot through a half-open sliding door in what Mila’s guessing is the courtyard of the Katsuki family onsen, and for a moment Mila’s a bit worried Viktor accidentally sent her his and Yuuri’s sex tape. Then the angle shifts and she sees Yuri. He’s—kneeling? The image isn’t super clear; Viktor seems to have the same thought, because he moves closer and now Mila can see that Yuri is kneeling before Otabek, holding something out to him.

_Oh my god._

She only realizes she’s gasped when Sara says, “Everything okay?” Mila tilts the screen towards her and Sara scoots closer to watch with her. The audio is low—Mila thinks she could hear if she had headphones in, but through her phone’s busted speakers it’s inaudible—but she can guess at what Yuri’s saying. “Oh my god,” Sara says, “is that—is he—”

“I think so,” Mila says. In the video, Yuri’s finished speaking and he shakes his hair back, waiting for Otabek to respond. One of Otabek’s hands goes to his face very slowly. He nods. Immediately, Yuri shoots to his feet and throws his arms around him. They kiss, Otabek’s arms around Yuri’s waist, Yuri’s hand that holds the ring squashed between them. Viktor and Yuuri start cheering, and Viktor reaches out to push the _shoji_ open. The camera flips and Viktor’s face fills the screen as the two of them charge in.

“They’re _engaged_!!” Viktor bellows at the top of his lungs, twirling around the room, and Mila catches one more glimpse of the fury on Yuri’s face and the befuddlement on Otabek’s behind him before the video ends.

“Oh my god,” Sara says into the silence. “How incredible! Did you know?”

“No,” Mila says. It’s exactly the kind of impulsive thing Yuri would do, though, so she isn’t exactly surprised. But no. She didn’t know. And it’s a little irritating Viktor didn’t leave it to Yuri to tell her himself.

Sara squeezes her hand, briefly, and stands. “You probably want to call him, so I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, you don’t—it’s really—” says Mila but Sara waves her off.

“I’m in St. Petersburg for the next two days, so call if you’re around,” Sara says with a smile. “Take care.” Mila watches her go, winding back through the apple trees, until she’s out of sight. Then she looks back down at her phone.

Yuri doesn’t answer; Mila expects he’s probably having some very enthusiastic engagement sex with Otabek. (Once he booted Viktor and Yuuri from the room.) Mila supposes she might as well call Viktor and scold him while she’s at it, so she punches over to his contact and hits call. He picks up right away and Mila doesn't wait a second. “Viktor, you moron, didn't it occur to you that Yuri might want to tell me this himself?”

Viktor’s quiet for a second, then he just says, “Oh,” in a very small voice. 

Mila rolls her eyes. “‘Oh’ is right.”

“I got so excited I didn't think.”

“I know, I know.”

“Isn't it incredible? I'm so pleased for them.” He sighs happily. 

“It is... incredible.” It sure is something, but Mila decides to set it aside until she actually talks to Yuri. She stands to walk back in the direction of the house while they talk.

“But! That's not all of it. This is why I called.”

“I called you.”

“This is why I was _about_ to call you. We're doing another exhibition! Onsen on Ice. You need to come out for it—I already talked to Yakov. He agrees that it’ll be better than that silly show in Novobirisk at the end of April.”

Mika is torn between annoyance and admiration for Viktor. It didn't even occur to him that Mila might not want to come. Which. She _does_. She just maybe would have liked to been asked first. 

He's still talking. “It's a little bit to celebrate and a little bit to help out the Nishigoris and it's an excuse to pull everyone together in the off-season and also just because the last one was so fun!”

“Yuri and Otabek are on board?”

“Of course! I called Yanna as well.”

“Viktor, you can't just go calling people’s coaches and asking them whatever you want like that!”

“Why not?” 

Sometimes Mila wishes she could move through the world the way Viktor does these days—buoyed by happiness and excitement and the assumption that everyone will say yes to him. And more often than not, they do, so it's not exactly like he's wrong. 

The connection crackles as Viktor shifts his phone on the other end. “You're going to come, aren't you, Mila?”

Mila sighs. “Of course I'm coming, Viktor. I can leave Wednesday. Buy me a plane ticket with your triple platinum credit card. First class only.”

“Absolutely! Oh my god, it's going to be _so_ fun. We should all try pairs skates, because why not. Georgi’s coming with Raisa, and I've already asked Emil and Chris, but Chris sadly doesn’t think he can make it. Phichit wasn't sure either when he talked to Yuuri but Celestino will crack if I call him, and you can ask the Crispinos now that you're on board—” 

Whoa, whoa, whoa. “ _Me_ ask the Crispinos? Why would I do that?”

“You and Sara are friends, aren't you?”

“Why would we be friends?”

“Why _wouldn't_ you be friends?”

“Stop that, Viktor. We don't all have your talent of making the world fall in love with us.”

“Sara loves you! Her coach told me she thinks you’re the best senior women’s skater!”

“Oh, come on. And why do you know every coach in the fucking world?!”

“I am one, Mila, and it's important to make a good impression.”

“Discover all their secrets and use that information to make sure Yuuri wins, you mean.”

“I'll never tell. Anyway, so, I'll buy your ticket tonight and we'll see you Wednesday, and you'll call Sara Crispino and ask her and Mickey to join.”

Mila considers protesting again but it would be purely for show. Viktor is impossible to resist. She taps a nail against the champagne glass still in her hand. “I'll call her.”

“Lovely. Yuuri says hello. Yura is quite busy currently but I'm sure he'll call you soon. Bye!”

Mila rings off just as she comes back through the rose garden to the house. The party is winding down—everyone except the really hardcore celebrants have left or are saying their goodbyes to Yuliya on the back patio, so Mila feels no guilt about snagging another bottle of champagne off one of the tables and taking it up to her lonely bedroom. 

She sheds the dress and shoes the moment she shuts the door and sits in the armchair at the window in her slip. From here, she can see across the grounds, the lingering light filtering through the archway at the end of the drive. The glossy, sleek cars creep around the gravel curve like great jungle cats, wolfing up their passengers in single bites. Mila cracks the window a bit and even from the third floor she can hear the rumble of their engines. No doubt Grigory is salivating. 

She's drunk about half of the champagne and the raucous laughter of the truly drunk is echoing through the garden when her phone rings. 

She answers. “Hi, Yura.”

“Hi, Milasha.”

Mila laughs. “No one calls me that, you know. Mila is enough of a nickname.”

“I forget it isn't your full name. Anyway. How's the party?”

“You didn’t see my extensive texts?”

“No, I’ve been—busy. Tell me.” 

“It’s dreadful. But I'm surviving.”

“Nick?”

“Successfully avoided,” she lies. If she gets into it now, she’ll derail Yuri and this should be about him.

“Good.”

He hesitates and Mila realizes that he's trying to figure out how to change the subject and tell her. So she makes it easier for him. “You proposed to Beka. Didn't you.”

Yuri sputters on the other end of the line. “What—how did you know?!”

“I know everything. But in this case, Viktor texted me. Don't worry, I already told him off.”

Yuri huffs out an annoyed breath but Mila can tell he's relieved. “Well, then. I'm engaged.”

“At eighteen. Are you pregnant?”

“Fuck off,” Yuri says, laughing. 

“Beka, then.”

“No one’s pregnant.”

Mila sighs. “I suppose if I want children I'll have to have them myself. I have to do everything around here, as usual.”

“I fear for them. To have their mother be the most terrifying woman I know.”

Mila laughs, surprised. “Lilia isn’t? And you were that worried about how I’d react?”

Yuri’s quiet for a moment, then he says in a small voice, “Maybe.”

“Well, then, I can meet that expectation if you wish. It’s very quick, you’re young, and you both have very demanding careers that you’re very serious about.”

“I know. I maybe got a bit carried away with everything.”

“Unsurprisingly. But Beka said yes.”

“He did.” Mila can imagine the smile on Yuri’s face, huge and warm and a little stupid, with none of his usual self-consciousness; Mila thinks of it as his Beka Smile.

“I think that’s all the answer you need, then. But maybe consider a long engagement.”

Yuri laughs. “Probably.”

“Good boy.”

They’re both quiet for a bit, then Yuri says, “So if you spoke to Viktor, did he tell you about Onsen on Ice?”

“He did. When did he even dream it up?”

“Apparently, the Nishigoris are having a hard time keeping the rink open and Yuuri wanted to help them out. As usual, Viktor made it into something much bigger than necessary.”

“How’s he even going to make it happen in time?”

“Viktor just has to talk everyone into it, which he’s done magnificently so far. Did he convince you? You’re coming, right?”

He has that plaintive note in his voice. Mila sighs. “Of course I’m coming.”

“Oh, thank god,” Yuri says on a quick exhale. “If you come, I know it’ll be fun. He wants us to try pairs skating.”

“So he and Yuuri can show off.”

“I _know_. He’s such a fucking drama queen.”

Just then, there’s a light tap on Mila’s door. “I have to go now, Yura, but I’ll see you very soon. Try not to kill anyone before I get to Japan.”

“Not until you’re here to help,” Yuri says and they hang up. Mila put her phone on the windowsill and goes to open the door.

It’s not Inga or Yuliya like she expected—it’s Nick. Looking very tall and and handsome under the low ceiling and gloom of the hall. Mila is very conscious of the fact that she’s wearing only her slip and stockings.

“Hi,” he says, and smiles.

She says the first thing that pops into her head. “How did you know which room was mine?” 

“Top floor, corner, but still overlooking the gardens. Easy.”

Mila taps a toe on the hardwood. “Well done.”

The smile turns into a smirk but Nick says nothing. Mila considers him, standing there, hands in pockets. 

She opens her mouth. _Tell him to fuck off_. “You might as well come in,” she says. A single step, then he’s inside—she pushes the door shut after him and they’re kissing before it’s closed.

It was inevitable from the moment she saw him on the front steps, she supposes, and she’s not so strong that she can resist the inevitability of the universe. Mila’s had all sorts of romantic relationships, ranging from hours to months in length, but Nick’s the only person she’d seen for years. They’d both been young athletes at the beginning of their careers, intoxicated with their own attractiveness and apparent infallibility. It was encouraged by their families and the engagement had followed quickly after Nick got drafted for SKA, because the only people who get engaged at 17 are those who feel like they’ve the world at their feet.

Mila broke off the engagement after she got her second Grand Prix medal. They went through the cycle of get back together/break up again until she won the first gold of her senior career at Euros the following season. She was independent for the first time in her life and she knew she’d never get tired of it. Nick had taken it well when she’d ended it for real, all things considered, but as the silk of her slip audibly rips in his haste to remove it, she realizes it probably wouldn’t hurt to reiterate.

“This doesn’t mean we’re together,” she gasps as he palms her breasts with his large hands, the rough skin scraping against her peaked nipples. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

Nick responds by kissing her, hard, and pushing her onto the bed. “I’m going to make you come so hard you’ll forget your own name,” he tells her bluntly. He kneels between her thighs and Mila moans at the first swipe of his tongue over her clit. 

He does make her come, twice, first with his mouth and then with his fingers and dick, fucking her in long, slow thrusts from behind that leave her shaking and incoherent. He covers her mouth through the second orgasm as she cries out loud enough to be heard through the open window.

In the afterglow, when both of them are sprawled out on Mila’s old bed, dappled with soft light as the lamps outside come on, Mila has to admit there’s something to be said for familiarity. She’s more than a little addicted to the discovery of someone’s body, the period in which everything is new and exciting and scary. But at this point, Nick’s body is almost as familiar as her own, from the dark curls of hair scattered over his stomach to the shell of his ear and the sound he makes when she licks it just so.

“I’ve missed you, Mila,” Nick says quietly then, and reality immediately rushes back in. His closeness is suffocating and she rolls out of bed to sit at the vanity. It’s still covered in her old makeup collection: cheap eye shadow and cherry chapstick and her first bottle of perfume. She smells it, and the cloying scent of “ocean spray” bring her straight back to being 14 and convinced it was the most mature thing in the world.

“Do you think you would ever marry me?”

Mila drops the perfume; it clatters over the floor and out of sight. “ _What_?”

Nick grins at her from the bed, self-satisfied. He has his phone in his hands. “I like startling you. It’s hard to do.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Deathly so. We’re both much wiser than we were the first time. What do you say we give it go?”

Mila grabs her slip from the floor and pulls it over her head. “I’m going to pretend you never said that. I don’t want to hear about it again.”

The grin dissolves. He throws his phone aside and sits up. “Come on, Mila.”

“I’m not the marrying kind, Nick, and you know that. Don’t be ridiculous and ruin a pleasant evening.”

Now he looks angry, especially once he stands and starts to gather his clothes. Mila watches him shove on his slacks and dress shirt, but after he fumbles the bow tie for the fourth time her irritation overcomes her and she goes to help him. Nick resolutely avoids her eyes as she bats his hands away and does it in a matter of seconds. 

“Don't be mad,” she says. 

“I don't know how you can call it pleasant, is all,” he says in a rush. “I don't understand you. This isn't what most people want, a rushed fuck every few months and no contact otherwise. It just isn't, Mila, and I don't understand how you're _happy_ with it. I want to marry you, I want you to be my wife and I want to have children with you—yes, children, though I'm sure you'll be horrified to hear that. We've both had our careers and now it's time to look towards the future.”

Mila pulls away, stung. “How dare—what do you _mean_ , you don't understand how I'm happy?”

“Happy with us, happy with how this relationship is!”

“We don’t have a relationship. I read in last week’s Zhizn that you’re engaged, for Christ’s sake!”

“My publicist spread that rumor. I had no control over it,” Nick says coldly. A muscle in his jaw is twitching. “But you thought I was engaged and you slept with me anyway?”

“I’m not your fucking _mother_ ” she snaps. “I don't really care if you understand or not, but I am happy with my life the way it is and it's not my fault if you aren't.”

Nick moves across the room to snatch up his suit jacket. He slips it on, shaking his head at her. “It's not right, Mila. To have sex with no emotions.”

“And yet you went ahead and did it anyway, even though I _said_ it doesn’t mean anything. My god, I can believe you were one of those judgmental assholes this entire time. You've hid it well.” She spits out every word.

“I won't be shamed for wanting a normal relationship,” he sneers.

“And I won't be shamed for wanting what I want, either. Go fuck yourself, Nikolai.”

“With pleasure,” he snarls, and slams the door behind him as he leaves.

Mila throws herself into the chair beside the window. Nick reemerges below before too long, marching out the front door and down the steps. Yuliya, standing on the front steps with a glass of champagne in her hand, seizes him by the arm. They talk with their heads bowed together for a moment and then Nick continues down the steps to his waiting vehicle.

Great. Now Mila will have to contend with whatever Nick told Yuliya in addition to what just happened. Yuri’s voice is back in her head. _You knew it was a bad idea and you went and did it anyway. All because you wanted to get laid._ She couldn’t just leave it the fuck alone. She couldn’t let the one relationship in her life that ended well stay that way.

 _Well_ , she thinks, gazing out the window at the velvet blue sky, _at least we went out with a bang._

She laughs out loud, and then she’s cracking up, hunching in on herself at the idiocy of her own joke. It’s totally, utterly stupid but it’s better than feeling shitty about herself. She’s still chuckling when she gets in the shower. She’s verging on hysterical when she changes into sleep clothes and figures a distraction is in order or this might get nasty. She crawls into bed with her laptop and takes a few deep breaths to calm herself. She’s searching for something to watch when there’s a tap on her door.

 _Oh, fuck, here we go_. “Come in,” she says, and sure enough, it’s Yuliya, face flushed and still in her party dress. “Hello, Yuliya,” Mila says.

Yuliya’s already sour expression sours further. “Have you been sleeping with Kolya this entire time?”

Well, at least it won’t be a drawn out scene. Mila shuts her laptop. “Define ‘entire time,’” she says.

“Don’t be coy, Ludmila,” Yuliya snaps. “Answer the question.”

“I don’t want to,” Mila snaps back. “It’s none of your business.”

Yuliya pushes the door all the way open and steps inside. “The Zahkarins are family friends, and if you have put those relationships at risk—”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Mila says, much louder than she intended. It feels like her ribs are cracking open as the dam just bursts, spilling out her pent-up fury and hurt and resentment. “I just don’t! I don’t care if you don’t like that I’ve been sleeping with Nick, I don’t care if it fucks up your social standing, I don’t care about any of these little meaningless things that you _want_ me to care about, and I don’t understand why you can’t accept that.”

Yuliya shakes her head very slowly. “You’re very selfish,” she says.

“Fine,” Mila says, “I’m selfish. I don’t care.” She can’t stop herself, even if there’s the little alarm going off in the back of her head that says _for Inga for Inga for Inga_. “I’m going back to the city tomorrow. You don’t have to deal with my self-centeredness any longer. Are we done?”

Yuliya’s pursed her lips into a totally flat line, nostrils flaring out above them. “We’re done,” she says and leaves. The door slams.

Mila throws herself back into bed and muffles a scream in one of the fluffy purple pillows. It had been the longest time she and Yuliya had been under the same roof without a full-blown fight; she expects she should be happy with the record. Inga will be disappointed—Mila was supposed to stay until Wednesday, and though the ice show in Hasetsu could have been a good excuse to leave early, an argument with Yuliya is not.

She stays in bed for a bit longer before she gathers the courage to creep out of her bedroom and down the hallway to Inga’s. Inga’s in bed reading, lamp still on, and she lifts the covers for Mila to get in without looking at her. Mila slips in, and Inga shifts lower so she can rest her head against Mila’s shoulder.

“Did you enjoy the party?” Mila asks her.

“I did,” Inga responds. “It was lovely.” Mila combs her fingers gently through her hair.

“I have to leave tomorrow,” Mila says. Inga looks up at her.

“Why? You said you could stay til Wednesday.”

“Viktor is putting together an ice show in Japan and he wants me to be part of it.” It slips out easily and Inga is already sighing resignedly, so Mila says nothing else.

“It was last minute?”

“Very. I’m not sure how we’ll get everything done in time.”

Inga laughs a little bit. “That sounds like Viktor. Well, I have to go in to the academy tomorrow anyway, so I’ll come with you on the drive.”

“Thank you, bunny,” Mila murmurs. Inga returns to her book and Mila returns to stroking her hair.

 

—-

 

Mila narrowly avoids tears when she hugs Inga goodbye just outside the front door of her apartment. The moment she gets inside, she throws her suitcase on the floor and herself into bed. With the way things worked out, she’s glad to be leaving for Japan in a few days. She feels emotionally hungover from her stay in Lomonosov and St. Petersburg is empty and depressing without Yuri or Dom or Viktor or Georgi, even.

All three of the boys are either engaged or already married now, Mila realizes with a shock. Georgi had gotten engaged to Rasia on Valentine’s Day (he’s a traditionalist to end all traditionalists). Viktor of course had been the first. And now Yuri. Christ, Yuri’s fucking _engaged_. It’s so strange to think. Again, it occurs to her that if it were anyone other than Otabek, it would be terrible.

She shivers and reaches for her phone before she realizes what she’s doing, and scrolls through her contacts. Sara Crispino’s name flashes by and Mila remembers that she’s supposed to call her.

Well, might as well kill two birds with one stone. She shoots off a text to Sara and gets in the shower.

Sara’s responded in her normally enthusiastic way by the time Mila gets out: `_yes, sounds lovely!!! see you there soon_`. The café Mila suggested is back towards the central part of the city, so she dresses in a hurry before heading out.

She hopes very much, as she gets on the train, that the interaction with Sara at the party wasn’t an anomaly. Maybe when her creepy brother wasn’t around and they weren’t both being crushed by the stress of competition, Sara is actually an enjoyable person to be around.

It takes her a moment to spot Sara among the crowd at Zinger, but then she sees the silhouette of that ridiculous floppy hat and finds her way through the tables. “Hi there!” Sara chirps as Mila sits. “I’m so glad you texted. I already ordered and got you coffee, which I hope was all right, but not food because I wasn’t certain what you’d want—”

“Thank you,” Mila says, cutting off the flow of words. “Coffee’s great. I’ll order some food.” She lifts a hand for the waiter.

Sara’s shaking her head when Mila turns back. “I’m sorry. I babble when I’m nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” Mila asks blankly—and a terrifying thought washes over her a moment later. _Oh god, she doesn’t think this is a date, does she? Oh fuck, oh fuck._

Sara’s dark eyes are serious under the hat. “You’re an intimidating figure, Mila.”

“I’m not,” Mila says immediately. “I can’t believe you’d be intimidated by _me_.”

“Well,” Sara says. “How was the rest of the party?”

It takes Mila a moment to pivot. Sara’s honesty is disarming. “It was. Fine. It was fine. It was a party. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did. We see so little of the countries we compete in—I loved the chance to see more than a Russian hotel and rink.”

The waitress brings their drinks at that moment. Mila puts in an order for a sandwich and then they’re left on their own again. For what might be the first time in her life, Mila can’t think of anything to say.

Thankfully, Sara can. “I looked at the program from the Vaganova again and found your sister. She danced the Profokiev.”

“She did,” Mila says. She sips her coffee, grateful for the simple action.

“It was absolutely lovely. The choreo was transcendent.”

“Which one was your friend?”

“Oh, she was part of the corps. No solo. The international students very rarely get solos.” The simple silver ring on her hand flashes as she stirs sugar into her coffee. 

“That was nice of you to come,” Mila says. It’s not exactly a short trip, especially for someone dancing in the corps.

“Caterina is a very old friend. We’ve known each other since primary school. We lived together for the few years between when I moved out of my family home and she moved here to go to the Academy.” She’s still stirring her coffee even though the sugar must be long dissolved, which makes Mila suspect there’s maybe more to it than just “old friend.”

She’s about to let it go and ask Sara about the weather or some similarly innocuous topic of discussion. However, when she opens her mouth, what comes out is, “Did the two of you date?”

She feels herself blushing but Sara just looks back at her. “Yes,” she says, “briefly.”

“I didn’t know you were gay,” Mila says next, because fuck it, she might as well go all in.

“Very,” Sara says. Her mouth is serious; then, as she raises her coffee to take a sip, Mila sees the amusement she’s hiding. “Always have been, in fact.”

Mila absorbs this revelation. Embarrassment slowly steals over her as it totally reorients her assessment of Sara as a boycrazy airhead. Because if Sara isn’t, that means Mila is a judgemental bitch. Which she is, but still. Yikes. This is a new low.

“Is that a problem?” Sara is looking at Mila over the brim of her cup with raised eyebrows.

Mila stumbles over herself to respond. “No, no, not in the least, I’m just—surprised, that’s all.”

“Most people are,” Sara says. “They see the dresses and the long hair and assume I’m desperately awaiting my Prince Charming. But then they follow me on Twitter for more than five seconds and catch on.”

Mila winces at the accuracy, but Sara doesn’t look at all put out. The waitress brings their food, and Sara asks Mila about the type of the mustard in the ham and mustard sandwich Mila ordered and then they’re talking about the optimal spiciness of different mustards and, just like that, they’re friends.

 

—-

 

Lunch turns into dessert which turns into a walk along the canal. They talk about ballet, movies, music, everything, and Mila really, truly tries to listen and respond without any preconceived expectations. As time passes, she rewrites and then totally erases her previous opinion of Sara in its entirety. She’s a big enough person that she can admit when she’s wrong. And in this case, it’s looking like she was completely, totally wrong.

It’s only when Sara brings up the video of Yuri proposing that Mila remembers she’s supposed to ask her about Onsen on Ice. “Oh my god,” Sara says. Her eyes go round. “He wants _me_ there?”

“You and Mickey, but yes.” Mila laughs a bit at her shock. “Is that surprising? You’re the number one women’s figure skater in the world, you know.”

“Yes, but he’s _Viktor Nikiforov_. He’s a legend. I can’t believe he knows who I am.”

Mila laughs for real at that. “Of course he does! My god, you should hear yourself.”

Sara sighs, looking out at the canal. “They never tell you that no matter how many gold medals you win, you never stop feeling like an imposter.” She glances over at Mila. “Does that happen to you?”

“I’ve only ever won one notable senior gold, so no,” Mila says, but she thinks again about Viktor and Yuri and the shadows they both cast, bracketing her like parentheses. “But yeah. Sometimes I do,” she adds quietly.

“I have to call Henri and check it with him—I don’t have another ice show until the first week of May, so I should be able to squeeze it in. Mickey, too, but I don’t speak for him.” The _anymore_ isn’t said, but Mila can still hear it. It feels like a very intentional boundary, a phrase rehearsed and repeated so that it becomes reality.

“Should I—Viktor call him?” Mila amends. She has no interest in asking Mickey flat out, and if it comes to that Viktor will have to handle it his goddamn self.

“No, I’ll let him know. If he has questions, can he get in touch with Viktor?”

“Sure. I’ll send you his number.”

Sara exhales and takes off her hat so she can run her hands through her hair. It’s midday and the air is finally starting to feel warm, the sun doing its best above them. “I’ve never been to Japan,” Sara says, “other than a couple times for NHK. That’s nothing like actually _being_ there, though. Do you like Hasetsu?”

“I’ve never been,” Mila admits. “So we’ll both be figuring it out.”

“It’s fun to see a place with a local, but sometimes discovering it with another person who knows nothing is a recipe for the unexpected.” Sara flashes her another smile before putting her hat back on. 

It’s actually a comforting thought, the idea of having Sara to explore with. All of her close friends—Yuri, Viktor, Yuuri and now Otabek—have either lived or spent significant time in Hasetsu. Mila’s the odd one out there. It hadn’t occurred to her to be anxious about that until this very second, but thankfully, with the implicit promise from Sara, she doesn’t need to be.

They part soon after—Sara has to pack for her trip back to Italy and Mila for hers to Japan. Her itinerary comes in from Viktor as she’s walking home from the metro stop; he’s booked her out Wednesday afternoon. Sara texts her that night saying Henri heartily approves of her participation in Onsen on Ice. `_so much so that he’s already planning to come for the show_`, she writes. `_Mickey is in touch with Viktor and I’ll update you if I hear_`. Mila breathes a mental sigh of relief to have that particular knot out of her hands.

The travel goes fine: she’s flown first (well, business on Finnair) only a few times and it certainly makes a ten-hour flight much more pleasant when she can recline all the way back after drinking several glasses of champagne and applying the provided lavender-scented hand cream. She snaps a photo of the luxurious space and sends it to Yuri on the complimentary wifi and then, after a second, to Sara as well. 

Her response comes while Mila’s eating dinner (braised salmon with roasted small potatoes and broccolini—much better than any airplane food has a right to be).

`**sara-crispino** : (Tired Face )`

`**sara-crispino** : just booked myself economy from rome`

`**sara-crispino** : pray for me`

`**sara-crispino** : only 16ish hrs of total travel though, which is not my worst. not by a long shot`

`**mila+baba** : pft`

`**mila+baba** : that’s absolutely nothing`

`**mila+baba** : i cant believe youre even complaining`

`**sara-crispino** : i thought i had it good until i saw your setup!!`

`**sara-crispino** : are those complimentary slippers??`

`**mila+baba** : yes and they are exactly the hideous shade of blue that they look like`

`**sara-crispino** : (Face With Tears Of Joy )(Face With Tears Of Joy )(Face With Tears Of Joy ) `

`**sara-crispino** : that just so happens to be my favorite shade of blue`

`**mila+baba** : you’re not serious`

`**sara-crispino** : i am`

`**mila+baba** : then in that case ill save them for you`

`**mila+baba** : in fact, ill ask the flight attendant for a totally fresh pair`

`**sara-crispino** : YES (Person With Folded Hands ≊ Folded Hands)`

`**sara-crispino** : forget a gold medal, this is the dream right here`

`**sara-crispino** : i look forward to slipping those babies on when i arrive on the 15th`

`**sara-crispino** : that’s the date viktor specified so we’ll see you then!!`

`**mila+baba** : see you then!`

—-

 

Yuri texted her back sometime in the middle of the night—day? flight?—with a view of his giant bed at the onsen. _`somehow i still prefer this`_ , he’s written. Mila can make out the edge of Otabek’s knee in the lower right corner. _`we’re meeting you at the airport so look for us!!!!`_

Yuri spots her before she sees them; one moment, she’s scanning the crowd for a blonde braid and a dark undercut, and the next she’s being hit with what feels like a fully-loaded freight train. She loses her balance under the onslaught and Yuri quickly goes from hugging her to holding her upright.

“Christ,” she says as she peels him off of her, “I saw you two weeks ago.” They trade places regarding who’s more irritated by excessive affection, but either way this is a lot.

“Sorry,” Yuri says breathlessly. He’s beaming, hugely, hair loose under his hood. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Mila says back, half-laughing at his ridiculousness, and pulls him in for a real hug. It’s been awhile since they’ve hugged properly and she’s not prepared for her nose to hit him square in the collarbone. She adjusts so her chin can hook over his shoulder. “You’re so tall. And so bony. God.”

“A month here and none of us will be bony,” comes Otabek’s voice. Yuri pulls away and Mila sees Otabek standing behind him, a few paces away.

“Avoiding the carnage?” Mila says, and he comes to hug her as well when she opens her arms.

Otabek embraces her warmly. “The last time Yura greeted me in Japan it ended in actual blood, so this is unremarkable by comparison.”

“It’s not my fault your chin is made of iron,” Yuri says as they make their way through to baggage claim. “You need to put a warning on that thing.”

“I’ll make it happen,” Otabek says gravely. He hoists Mila’s bag when she points it out, and Yuri loops an arm around her waist as they follow him to the exit.

 

—-

 

Yuu-topia is beautiful. The wood floors are warm and honey-smooth under her socked feet. Yuri points out the roomy, central courtyard—in the middle of the garden, a single cherry tree sheds its final blossoms—and the way down to the onsen. Mila dumps her stuff in her tiny room on the first floor of the guest wing and lets Yuri give her the tour.

It’s also full of noise, pets, and people. Mila expects that the family wing is much quieter than the inn, which has just enough of an edge to its control that Mila can see how well-oiled the machine is. Toshiya reigns from behind the bar, calling out greetings to guests while serving up sweating bottles of beer; Hiroko bobs from room to room and table to table, serving food and carting boxes; Mari is harder to notice unless Mila looks for her, and then she sees her everywhere, sweeping away dishes, slipping into guest rooms with fresh sheets, sitting on the veranda and quietly smoking a cigarette.

Mila understands Yuri’s love for it almost instantly. It’s the kind of home neither of them have ever had, the kind of place the house in Lomonosov could have been if Yuliya had cared more about her daughters and less about her social standing. She says as much to Yuri when the tour comes to an end in the courtyard, and the look he gives her is at once suspicious and knowing.

“Was it that bad, being there?” he asks. Beyond them, Otabek tactfully wanders to the other side of the garden, hands clasped behind his back.

“Yes,” Mila says truthfully. “I felt like a... nice vase, or a tapestry. Another thing for her to artfully arrange and present.”

“God,” Yuri says. The gravel crunches under his feet as he sits on the veranda’s ledge. “Like you said, I guess it’s good you love your sister.”

Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes Mila wishes she didn’t love anyone, that she could live her life free from connections and complications. It’s a sudden thought, melodramatic and absurd, and she pushes it away almost as soon as it occurs. “I’m glad to be here,” is what she says.

“I’m so relieved you’re here,” Yuri says back. “I was five seconds from murdering Viktor last night. He’s being ridiculous about this gala.”

As if on cue, there’s the sound of the front door opening and the sound of Viktor’s voice booms through the house and into the courtyard. “Hello hello! Has a certain redheaded Russian lady graced us with her arrival yet?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “You do that so much I’m afraid they’re going to fall out of your head,” Mila tells him before calling into the house, “Yes, we’re here!”

 

—-

 

Mila gets her first taste of the infamous _katsudon_ that evening at dinner; the inn has non-skating guests until next week when everyone else arrives so the Katsukis don’t join them, but Toshiya helps Hiroko cart the steaming bowls into the dining room and Mila employs every Japanese exclamation she’s ever learned from Yuuri to express her appreciation and enjoyment. Hiroko smiles widely and they bob small bows back and forth until Yuuri puts a hand on Mila’s shoulder to make her stop. Hiroko leaves, laughing, and they dive in.

“Your accent might be better than Viktor’s,” Yuuri says to Mila.

“I just don’t have an ear for it,” Viktor says. His tone is mournful and Yuuri takes his hand.

“Somehow you still manage to make yourself understood,” he says, “and that’s what matters.”

“Every single person I speak to in this town knows who you are,” Yuri inserts. “They all ask me if I know you. It’s ridiculous.”

“They’re all so nice. People want to know top skater Yuuri Katsuki’s trophy husband and I’m happy to oblige.”

“Ugh. I don’t like talking to people,” Yuri says.

“We know,” Otabek says, the first time he’s spoken during the meal, and Mila readies to witness Yuri defend himself with unparalleled speed and passion.

Instead, she watches as Yuri looks at Otabek and says, “You, who I cannot remember ever speaking to a new person I didn’t introduce you to, want to be the one to make fun of me for that?”

“People don’t speak to _me_ ,” Otabek says, frowning slightly.

“Because your resting bitchface is so intense that even the pope would have second thoughts about approaching you.”

Mila laughs, sharp and loud, and has to cover her face with her hands. Yuri and Otabek look at her in surprise, as if they’d forgotten anyone else was listening. At her left, Yuuri and Viktor are smiling as well. “It’s true,” Mila says. “Your bitchface is absolutely on point.”

Everyone laughs at that, Otabek chuckling ruefully at his bowl. “Honestly?” he says. “90% of the time I don’t even know that’s what my face is doing.”

“And the other 10% of the time he’s either looking at JJ Leroy or trying to scare me into cooking dinner,” Yuri adds.

“What can I say? It works.” Otabek shrugs, looking at Yuri, who elbows him. Otabek dodges and pulls him in with an arm around his shoulders, kissing him on top of the head. Mila isn’t sure what amazes her more, seeing Otabek be so openly affectionate or seeing Yuri let him. For the first time, she notices the ring on Otabek’s hand, glinting in the low light. She can’t quite see Yuri’s hand, but when he lifts it to tuck Otabek’s hair behind his ear, there’s definitely something on one of his fingers.

Viktor sighs happily. “It’s so nice to be all together. I propose a toast!”

“No,” Yuri and Yuuri say in unison. “I want to finish my meal before midnight,” Yuuri continues. Viktor looks a little let down but when Yuuri offers him his remaining miso he cheers right up.

Later, when Yuri comes into her room to make sure she’s settling well, she yanks him down and onto the futon to examine his ring. “I’m a bad friend,” she says. “I’m supposed to look right away.” Yuri laughs and pulls his hand out of her grasp. He slips the silver ring off his finger so he can drop it in her open palm.

It’s much lighter than she expected. She looks closely and immediately sees why. “It’s plastic? He got you a fucking plastic ring?!”

“It’s from the Hasetsu Castle gift shop,” Yuri says. “I surprised him and he wanted to get me something while mine was being made.”

That just might be the most disgustingly romantic thing Mila has ever heard of. She gives the ring back and watches Yuri slide it into place. “You couldn’t even wait and plan it out like a normal person. Were you worried someone else would swoop in and steal him away from you?”

“No,” Yuri says. He leans so he’s resting against the wall. “It was the best way I could think of to let him know that it’s forever. That we’re forever. I didn’t see the point in waiting.”

Mila takes it back. _That_ has got to be the most romantic thing she’s ever heard of. “You’re so gone over him,” she says.

“I know,” Yuri responds. He doesn’t even make a show of disagreeing. In fact, he’s grinning.

There’s a soft tap on the door then. “Yura,” comes Otabek’s voice, “I’m going to bed.”

“Coming,” Yuri calls back. He hops off the bed, and spins at the last second to dart in and press a kiss to Mila’s forehead. “Night,” he says, and leaves.

Mila is left to her nighttime routine. The futon is comfortable enough, but she can barely see a small strip of dark sky outside the little window. The moment Mila lies down and closes her eyes, she has a creeping feeling that the walls are closing in around her. Her body keeps jerking her awake just as she slides into an exhausted doze.

After the fourth or fifth time, she kicks the blankets off. _For fuck’s sake_. Shivering, she digs through her toiletries kit for something—anything—that might help. There, at the bottom, she unearths a mostly empty bottle of Corvalol, left over from her end-of-season cold. One dose and she’s drifting off.

 

—-

 

Viktor and Yuuri take charge of Mila in the morning, towing her the half kilometer to the Ice Castle. Mila meets Yuuko and Takeski and their triplets (they know who she is the moment she sets foot in the lobby, though she literally cannot tell one from another). Viktor puts his skates on and one of the girls trails him around the rink, taking avid notes as he narrates what’s apparently the latest chunk of his vision.

“You really think he can pull this off?” Mila says to Yuuri as they watch.

“At this point, it’s a question of whether _we_ can pull it off, I think,” Yuuri says. “You’re in it now, too.”

“If it fails I’m blaming him, though.”

“Of course.”

“Yuuri!” comes Yuuko’s voice, and Yuuri turns to look at the spreadsheet she has open on her tablet. They converse in rapid Japanese while Mila returns to watching Viktor on the ice. All three of the triplets have joined him and it looks like he’s trying to teach them a sit spin. 

“You’re letting them cheat their edges, Viktor!” Yuuko calls across the rink. Viktor waves a hand, brushing off the critique, and the triplets shout in a chorus of Japanese. Yuuri gestures Viktor over to the boards to show him whatever exciting information is contained in this spreadsheet.

“They already know how to do a sit spin, don’t they?” Mila asks Yuuko.

She laughs. “Of course,” she says.

“You’re all so terribly indulgent with him. It’s very kind of you.”

“Not at all. Takeshi and I... We are very grateful. And you, and all the other skaters.” She dips her head at Mila.

“Oh god,” Mila says, “there’s no need to thank me. I’ve done nothing at all so far.”

“In this day and age keeping a rink open is hard but my husband and I can’t accept handouts. This way, we’re all happy. More than happy.”

“Mila!” Viktor calls. He’s gliding back to the center of the ice, holding a clipboard in both hands. Yuuri is sitting on one of the benches doing up his laces. “Get your skates on. I need to show you what I’ve been working on.”

“I’m summoned, “ Mila says to Yuuko apologetically, but Yuuko waves her off.

“There will be plenty of time. Go.”

Mila dips her head in thanks and goes to join an expectant Viktor.

 

—-

 

It takes Mila exactly ten minutes to comprehend the absurd entirety of what Viktor is imagining. The opening and closing, she gets. The usual solos. The smaller group numbers are typical of a bigger ice show. But there’s also— 

“You only invited skaters who have skated solo since the start of their careers. And yet you want us all to skate _pairs_. You know ice shows are supposed to be easy.”

“You don’t _have_ to skate pairs. I think it’d be fun. And I know you want a challenge, Mila.”

He’s not wrong. It’s always felt like an extreme kind of whiplash, going from the intense focus of the season to the loose barely-choreography of ice shows. Fun, but not exactly stimulating. “Who will I skate with? Who will choreograph?”

“I’ll choreograph. Or you could do it together.”

“ _Choreograph_?” Mila’s never choreographed more than two seconds of a skating program in her life. 

“Yes,” Viktor says. He pulls off his gloves. “Don’t you want to try?”

“I’ve... never thought about it.” She hasn’t, not really. She’s not the visionary that Viktor is, the one with control over every part of her image.

“Well, then, think about it. We’re not trying to be perfect, or complicated, or competition level. And the theme is love, by the way.”

“Again?! How are you _still_ on this ‘love’ kick? I know you’re not that strapped for inspiration.” 

Viktor shrugs with one shoulder. He smiles at Mila, full and warm on the cold expanse of ice. “I’ll never be over this love kick. Get used to it.”

They walk back to the onsen as Viktor describes the rest of the show. He has the shape pinned down, the kinds of pieces he wants, but, “We’ll wait until everyone arrives to decide the rest.”

Otabek and Yuri are apparently out on a hike, so it’s Mila, Viktor, and all the Katsukis at lunch. As Mila is coming to expect, Hiroko had prepared a truly magnificent spread of food. Mila snaps a photo to send to Inga later, but once it’s dished out and the table has broken into smaller conversations, Mila’s attention keeps being caught by Yuuri and his parents. 

They’re just talking, in English, about a neighbor’s new restaurant or something. It’s so... normal. It feels like watching aliens communicate. Hiroko goes to fetch something she left in the kitchen, and ruffles Yuuri’s hair as she walks back to her place. Mila drops her chopsticks.

“Everything all right?” Viktor asks her in quiet Russian from his place on her right. “Do you need a spoon?”

“I’m fine. I just don’t know that I’ve ever observed a non-dysfunctional family interact before.”

He laughs under his breath. “I know. They’re so normal they should be in a museum.”

After dinner, Mila’s text to Inga is still unanswered, but that’s unsurprising considering how busy she is during the day. Mila does, however, have a message from Sara. It’s a photo of her packed suitcase, captioned, _`we’re coming for you, Japan!`_

The Crispinos aren’t due to arrive until the end of the week. _`your preparation is impressive`_ , Mila texts back as she gets ready for bed.

 _`i’m just excited ! (Smiling Face With Open Mouth And Tightly-Closed Eyes )`_, reads Sara’s reply. Mila just sends back every party emoji she can find, along with multiple laughing faces. 

 

—-

 

Days are spent at the rink, helping Viktor pin down the basic choreography of the opening and closing. He’s still on her about trying to choreograph, but for now Mila sticks to offering her perspective as a female skater. And reigning Viktor in.

“You really don’t need that many twizzles,” she says on the second day, when he’s showing her and Yuuri a sequence. (“Maybe for a Team Russia group number?” he says brightly.)

“In the piece?”

“In just that ten seconds,” Yuuri says. “I feel dizzy watching you.” Viktor laughs, but takes the note: in the next iteration, there are half as many twizzles. 

The morning Emil and the Crispinos are to arrive, they finalize the opening choreo. Viktor has everyone come to help, so he has as many bodies as possible. Viktor, Yuuri, Yuri, and Mila are all on the ice; Otabek plays DJ, cycling through a number of possible songs. Yuri complains endlessly—about the temperature in the rink, the silliness of the moves, anytime Viktor’s direction isn’t entirely clear. It’s like he’s making up for his lack of complaining during the season. They roll off of Viktor easily. Or, at least, Mila thinks so, until Yuuri pulls Yuri aside during a break. 

“You can go, if you want,” Yuuri says in an undertone while Viktor’s talking tempo with Otabek. “We’ll be okay.”

“I don’t want to go!” Yuri scoffs. He pulls his hair down from its messy twist and glares while he redoes it.

“All right, then,” Yuuri says, and skates off. Yuri watches him go before turning to Mila.

“He’s so fucking _nosy_ ,” Yuri says under his breath.

“You’re unnecessarily nasty today,” Mila says, because he is.

Yuri turns his glare on her. He snaps the elastic around his braid. “I don’t like being a body in space for Viktor to push around according to his creative genius.”

“Are you mad he’s good, or mad he’s not asking your opinion?” Yuri opens his mouth to argue. “Don’t. You know he’s good.”

“It’s a fucking ice show opening, it can’t be good,” Yuri mutters, but Mila knows from the way he looks away he knows she’s right.

“If you want a say in choreo, speak up. Don’t be an asshole just to be an asshole.” Yuri exhales loudly, blowing the little curls around his face out of his eyes. “You know I’m right.”

“No, I don’t,” Yuri says mulishly, and skates off in Viktor’s direction.

He doesn’t voice another complaint for the rest of the day, though, and Mila sees him catch up to Viktor as they go into the men’s side of the onsen later before dinner. Mila sinks into her own bath shrouded in steam and a well-earned peace.

She’s woken up by Mari some time later—or, she thinks it must be later, because the sky is darkening and the lanterns are on. Mari is laughing. “You really need to be careful,” Mari says. “A giant tub of hot water is not an ideal place to drift off.”

Mila accepts Mari’s hand, climbing out of the bath. “It’s unusual for me,” Mila says as they head back inside towards the changing rooms. “I’m normally a fussy sleeper.”

“Viktor is working you hard, eh?”

“Not particularly.” Mila’s hair is matted against her neck where it’s escaped from the little ponytail she can manage now. She attacks it with a comb.

“Well, your friends should be resting in their rooms at this point. The men went into the baths but Sara wanted to take a nap before dinner.”

“Oh! They’re here?” 

“They certainly are.” Mari is already fully dressed; she pushes up her usual bandanna to get her own hair out of her face and shuts her locker. “Actually, you mind waking them for dinner? I need to get the sheets from the line before it storms.

“I—sure.” 

“Wonderful. Top floor, last three rooms on the end. Thanks!” Mari flashes Mila a smile as she leaves.

Mila spends several more fruitless minutes detangling until she has to admit defeat. She throws on her own clothes and fishes Yuri’s beanie out of her suitcase before padding up the little staircase to the second floor guest quarters. It’s only as she’s knocking on the first door that she realizes any one of the rooms could belong to any one of the three. Then someone says, “Come in!” from behind the door and she steels herself for it to be Mickey as she opens it.

The top floor rooms are much larger. That’s Mila’s first impression. The windows are huge and this one has a western-style bed instead of a futon and Mickey is indeed sitting on it. But so is Emil, and he’s already rising to come towards Mila, arms open.

“Mila!” he exclaims in his usual genial tone. Mila accepts the warm embrace. (Emil gives the best hugs.) “So good to see you. This place is gorgeous, no? Those hot springs!”

“It’s lovely. I’m so glad you’re here. The travel was okay?”

“Uneventful. Mickey was just telling me about his. Terrible!”

“Hi Mickey,” Mila says to him. He’s still sitting on the bed, knees drawn up to his chest. “Sorry to hear it was rough.”

“Absolutely dreadful. Gross incompetence,” he says. He sighs, deeply. “But the springs are nice.”

“You were delayed?”

“No. The airline lost our luggage.”

“Oh, that’s no fun.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Terrible!” Emil says again just as his phone _dings_. Mila stares up at the ceiling while he checks it. She can feel Mickey’s eyes on her.

“Well, it’ll be dinnertime soon, so I’ll go wake Sara,” she says quickly.

“I’ll wake her,” Mickey says just as quickly.

“Oh, I don’t mind.”

“She hates getting up, so she’ll snap at you unless you do it right. I should do it.”

“Thank you, I’ll be fine.” Mila backs out of the room. “See you at dinner!” She shuts the door behind her before Mickey can voice any more protests.

No one answers at the next room, so Mila guesses it to be Emil’s. She taps softly on the corner one. After a moment, there’s a soft, “Yes?” from within, and Mila opens the door.

The room is dark, shades drawn on the two walls of windows, except for the bed area. There, Sara lays on her side on the futon, facing the wall, cold blue light emanating from her phone. Without looking, she says, “I already got your text, Mickey.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Mila says, “but it’s not Mickey.”

Sara turns over immediately. “Mila!” She shoots up to sitting but stops abruptly, putting a hand out to steady herself on the coverlet.

“You all right there?” Mila asks. She steps into the room and lets the door shut behind her. The room is dark once again.

“Fine,” Sara says on an exhale. “I just get these headaches when I fly, and I can’t find my paracetamol...” She pats the bed beside her. “So good to see you, though. How’s it been here?”

Mila goes to sit by her. Sara’s brows are pinched together unpleasantly, her mouth a flat line below them. Even her normally ruddy skin looks washed out. “I’m sure they have something like that here. Mari would know. I’ll ask.”

She makes to get up but Sara grabs her arm. “I’m fine! It’s all right. Tell me about Hasetsu. How’s your time been so far?”

“Wonderful,” Mila says, and means it. She tells Sara about the inn and the springs and the rink and Viktor’s crazy plans. Sara _mms_ and _ohs_ and laughs quietly at all the right parts. Her eyes are on Mila even though she’s massaging her temples with a hand. “Some food might help, do you think?” Mila finally says. It hurts to watch her. “Mari sent me to wake you for dinner anyway.”

“You’re probably right,” Sara says. “I think somewhere under the jetlag I’m starving. Lead on.”

Mila can hear the buzz of gathered people even while still in the guest quarters; it grows to a dull roar and then an actual roar when they push through the doors and into the eating area foyer. All of the inn’s occupants are in the small space, even the few normal guests who have nothing to do with the ice show. Everyone is laughing and talking with drinks in hand: Emil and Otabek and Yuri across the way, Viktor and a slightly-cheerier-looking Mickey, Yuuri and several enthusiastic guests. And, Mila realizes with a shock, the famous Minako Okukawa with Takeshi Katsuki at the bar. 

“Is that—” Sara whispers.

“She looks so _young_ ,” Mila says. She’s seen her in the audience at skating events before but here she is, up close and in the flesh, drinking beer with Yuuri’s dad.

“Oh my god,” Sara says. Her eyes are huge.

They stare for several long moments until Viktor spots them and waves a hand for the two of them to come join. Sara goes and Mila trails after, scanning the crowd—and snags Mari’s sleeve as she sails past with a tray of drinks. “Mari—do you have paracetamol?”

“Hm?”

“Acetaminophen?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Who needs it?”

“Sara. Do you mind?”

“Of course not, I’ll be just a second.” She’s off again, and Mila turns to join the Viktor-Mickey-Sara knot.

Viktor pulls her in with an arm around her shoulders right away. “But then, I know we have Mila to thank for getting you to come. It’s an honor, really—”

“For _me_ , Viktor, please. The honor is entirely mine. I can’t wait to see what you have for us.” Mickey is silent, staring off across the room.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun, to say the least,” Mila says. “Viktor says you’re going to do a pairs skate.”

“Did he?” Sara looks back at Viktor. He grins widely.

“Mickey was excited for the idea. He said the two of you are very evenly matched.”

“Hmm,” says Sara, and before she can elaborate, Mickey is asking Viktor about the sakė they’re drinking and the two of them dive into a discussion on cold vs. warm sakė and then they’re all being ushered into the dining room. In the noisy migration, Mila catches a glimpse of Mari slipping in beside Sara and offering her a little packet. Sara accepts, confused, and then thanks Mari profusely when she sees what it is. Mari points across the room to where Mila is and ducks back out. Mila gives Sara a little smile, who mouths _thank you_ back.

Dinner is even more boisterous than usual. Drinks and stories flow in tandem and by the end of the night Mila’s stomach is sore from the combination of laughter and good food. Emil and Sara insist on going down to the beach after dinner. “I’ve never seen this view of the Pacific,” Emil says as the table is cleared.

“Technically it’s the Sea of Japan, I think,” Mila says.

“Are seas part of the ocean?” Viktor muses, finger on his chin.

“I’m fairly certain they are,” Otabek says.

“They are. I read a book about it,” Yuri says from the end of the table where he’s scrolling through his phone.

“You read a book about the ocean?” Mila asks. “Why?”

“I wanted to know what was at the bottom,” Yuri says.

“Sea, ocean, lake, puddle, I don’t care,” Emil says. “Let’s go look at some water.”

 

—-

 

They straggle down to the ocean in twos and threes. By the time Mila has grabbed a jacket and shoes and made it to the shore, Yuuri and Otabek already have the beginnings of a bonfire built; Viktor and Sara sit near with Makkachin between them. Yuri is running after Sezim. Mickey and Emil are further down, the crescent moon hanging above their heads in the clear sky.

Mila kicks her sandals off so she can dig her toes into the sand as she goes to join . Sara is scratching Makka right under the chin, in her favorite spot. “You’re lovely, aren’t you?” Sara is saying.

“She’s spoiled, is what she is,” Mila says. Viktor shoots her a look. “Oh, don’t,” Mila says to him. "You would spend every single penny of your savings on her if you could.”

“I would spend it on _any_ of you,” Viktor says, wounded, and they laugh, especially Yuuri as he lights the kindling underneath the assembled wood. Viktor goes to fetch drinks from the inn and by the time he returns, the group has reassembled in the circle of warmth. 

“Here, Mila,” Yuri says from her elbow. He’s holding out a beer; when Mila takes it, he sits down beside her and cracks open his own. “Nothing like a bonfire to make shitty beer taste better.”

Mila taps her can against his. “Next best thing to a dance floor.” The beer is cold and bubbly and goes down easily next to the heat of the fire. It sparks as Yuuri stokes it and crackles as Otabek adds more wood. Sara, beer in hand, observes avidly.

“Otabek,” she says, “where did you learn how to do this? It seems like such an art.”

Otabek pauses in adding more kindling to the base of the flames. “My father taught me. It’s not so difficult once you know what you’re doing.”

“I couldn’t make a fire if my life depended on it,” Emil declares.

“It can’t be that hard,” Mickey says. He’s kicked back onto his elbows. Rather than a beer, he has a glass of the sakė they were drinking at dinner. “You just light shit on fire.”

“Unless you want it to burn for longer than five minutes,” Otabek says. He snaps one of his sticks in two and tosses the pieces on top.

“Well, I’d love to learn,” Sara says, seating herself on the sand. “If we do another of these, Otabek, you’ll have to teach me.

“Of course,” he says. He pulls his hair back with a hair tie from his wrist, and sits next to her. “And you can call me Beka.”

Sara nods, beaming, and turns back to the fire. Beside Mila, Yuri stretches like a cat and nudges her elbow aside so he can lay down with his head on her knee. Once he’s comfortable, he takes her hand and places it in his hair. He looks up at her out of the corner of his eye. “Please,” he says.

Mila sighs. “Since you asked so nicely.” She undoes his braid and combs through the strands with her fingers. Yuri exhales happily, closing his eyes. He straightens his legs so he can tuck his toes under Otabek’s thigh. Without looking, Otabek rubs a hand over Yuri’s ankle. Mila has to snort in amusement. “My attention isn’t enough for you?”

Yuri just smiles, eyes still closed. Mila laughs under her breath. Self-satisfaction is written in every line of his body.

“All right,” comes Sara’s voice. “Who can sing?”

“I can,” Viktor says.

“That’s a lie,” Yuri says, though only loud enough for Mila to hear.

“If Viktor is singing, can I have another beer?” Mila says. Yuuri tosses her one as Viktor stands. 

Viktor smiles at the gathering. “All right, let’s start with a classic from my childhood...”

 

—-

 

In the morning, they all traipse over to the rink for their first group practice. The sky is overcast and the wind off the river is sharp with the smell of fish and salt, but Mila finds herself in the center of the group as they walk—the yelling, laughing, chaos of it. It hugs her like a blanket while they warm up, especially when Yuri gets drawn into a flexibility competition between him, Yuuri, and Sarah, entirely against his will (or so he says). Mila hasn’t even laced up her skates and she already laughing so hard she can barely breathe. They don’t calm down until Viktor calls everyone together. “So!” he says brightly once it’s quiet. He smiles and opens his arms, clipboard in one hand. “Thank you all so much for being here. I’ve been hard at work—”

“ _We’ve_ been hard at work,” Yuri snipes under his breath, only loud enough for Otabek on one side and Mila on the other to hear.

“—preparing a great show. But, as I’ve told all of you individually, I don’t want this to be a typical ice show, and I think that’s implicit in the theme...”

He’s tightened the pitch since he gave it to Mila: he talks about the different kinds of love, how they’ll frame it up with the opener, and the other pieces he’s thinking about. The group is with him, listening intently and nodding along—even Mickey. Viktor finishes with a description of the finale and opens his hands once again. “Questions?”

“It’s wonderful,” Sarah says at once. “I love it.”

“I do, too,” Emil says sincerely. “I’m glad I ditched Ice Chips for this.”

“Excellent!” Viktor chirps. “Then let’s begin.”

Mila falls in beside Sara as they warm up, matching her pace. “Have you and Mickey skated pairs before?”

“When we were kids. Not since I debuted as a junior. Did you ever think about it?”

“No way,” Mila laughs. “Imagine me trusting a man to throw me in the air and catch me. Never.”

“Here I thought you were the daredevil of the group.” 

Sara is smiling, the corners of her mouth quirked up. “Sorry to disappoint, but that crown belongs to the actual on-ice hotheads of Yuri and Viktor. I’m only reckless off the ice.” Mila tries for indifference but it comes out much closer to dismissive.

“Ah,” Sara says. The playful smile is gone. “Well, I suppose that’s easier on your knees at least. Mohawks?”

“Yes,” Mila says. They set off. Before long, Emil and Mickey join them and the noisy hubbub surrounds Mila once again.

 

—-

 

Hasetsu in the spring is gorgeous. It has all of the charms of Lomonosov without the accompanying childhood trauma, and the buzzing inn provides her with the same sensory overload as St. Petersburg—though it is certainly of a more wholesome variety. Mornings are practice, afternoons are free, and evenings inevitably find them all either in the onsen’s dining room or Minako’s snack bar. It’s the closest thing to community Mila’s had since... well, ever.

Back in the city, the days would be elongating dramatically, ahead of summer. Here, however, the sun rises and sets at a normal time. When she actually falls asleep at night, she finds herself wakened gently by the rising sun, even on the more overcast mornings. There’s no spin class or plyometrics training or sunrise yoga for her to go to, though, so most days she just lays in bed and lets the light wash over her.

That lasts for only a few days, though, before her body makes its desire to Do Something known, and by the end of the first week she finds herself resignedly rifling through her suitcase for her running shoes. The inn is quiet when she does slip out of the room, though the birds are chattering loudly in the front courtyard when she puts her shoes on and stretches briefly under the heavily clouded sky. 

The first mile is hell. It always is when she goes through her short-lived running fits. It limits her focus to pure physical determination, but then her well-trained body loosens up and she can notice things like the lack of pollution and increased humidity, the little street carts still locked up tight along the river, and the last few cherry blossoms clinging to the trees. And the space. It’s eerie, honestly. At this hour, Pita would be buzzing already. Hasetsu is just barely beginning to stir. 

She gets to the bridge and lets herself take it in. She has a picture of Yuri doing this, too, on one of his own runs. He’s probably using the off-season as an excuse to slack off, just as she has. Maybe tomorrow she’ll make him come with her. Only the two of them for a change. The thought warms her and she turns up her music and turns back.

Yuu-topia, too, is rousing itself when Mila returns. Mari is already sweeping the courtyard, cigarette in mouth. She nods to Mila, and Mila smiles back, earbuds still in. She’s already calculating whether she has enough time for a soak before they need to be at the rink, and almost misses it when Mari looks past Mila and nods to someone else. 

Mila turns, and sees Otabek and Yuri. They’re also obviously returning from a run, Sezim trotting on a leash behind. “Mari, Mila,” Otabek says. He’s flushed from the exercise and wearing one of Yuri’s silly pastel headbands to keep his bangs out of his face.

“Morning,” Mila says.

“You went running?” Yuri says. He heads straight for the visitors’ wing entrance, around to the eastern side of the courtyard.

“No, I went to yoga,” Mila mocks. “Of course I went running.” She follows Yuri into the dimly lit corridor. Sezim’s nails click on the wood behind her.

“I didn’t know you ran,” Otabek said. Ahead, Yuri opens the door to his and Otabek’s room at the end of the hallway and sudden light spills out.

“She doesn’t,” Yuri says.

“Maybe this will be the time that sticks,” Mila says lightly. Yuri smiles and flips a hand at her, clearly not buying it.

“In, Sez,” Otabek says, pointing, and the dog darts into the room. He looks back at Mila. “See you at breakfast, Mila?”

“Yep,” Mila says, and turns towards her own room.

 

—-

 

“Don’t do it, Viktor, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“No, I won’t,” Viktor says.

“You’ll hurt Yuuri, then,” Yuri says.

“It’s just a spin,” Yuuri says from where he’s giving his hamstring one final stretch.

“You are both so fucking _irresponsible_ ,” Yuri snaps. “You’re not seventeen anymore, Viktor. I’m not about to push you around in a wheelchair for the next six decades because you finally blow your ACL.”

“I’ll push him,” Yuuri says.

“You can’t if he drops you and you’re _brain dead_ ,” Yuri snarls.

“My god, Yura, it’s like you care,” Viktor says. He goes into a double sal and lands it right in front of the group, smiling.

“I _don’t_ ,” Yuri says.

“You’re doing a good impression,” says Otabek.

“Spot on,” adds Mila.

“I want to see you try,” Sara says to Viktor and Yuuri. “But please be careful.”

“This is far from the most dangerous thing any of us have attempted,” Yuuri says, pushing off from the wall.

“Hear hear,” Otabek says.

Yuuri and Viktor are circling the rink, side by side. They stroke in unison before linking opposite hands and then Yuuri is bending gracefully backwards into a full death spiral. Viktor extends his other arm with his usual dramatic flair. They keep it short—just three full circles—before coming easily out of it and turning to the group.

“That was underwhelming,” Yuri says.

Mila smacks him on the shoulder. “It was excellent,” she says to Yuuri and Viktor.

“So natural,” Sara adds. “Like you’ve been doing it your whole career.”

“It did look really good,” Otabek says.

Yuri says, “You could do a twist if you tried.”

“Fuck off, Yura,” Yuuri says, laughing. Viktor is chuckling also as they skate away to the opposite side of the rink. The rest of them file on to the ice and, same as she has for the last few days, Sara falls in beside Mila silently.

Crossovers, then mohawks, and they’re into rockers before Mila says, “I could throw you.”

Sara looks over at her. “You think?”

“What else are all those planks for?”

Sara laughs. “A few things come to mind.” She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Let’s try it.”

Mila half-expects her to ditch, but after their morning session and opener run-through, when everyone heads back to Yuu-topia for lunch, Sara’s still there on the ice. Mila grabs their water bottles and joins her at the mid-rink boards. They drink in silence.

Finally, Sara speaks. “So,” she says.

Mila half-snorts, half-laughs. “Oh my god, what the fuck are we doing,” she mutters.

“I don’t know,” Sara says. She tosses her empty bottle into the stands and sweeps away to the center of the ice. “And I like it!” she calls.

Mila has never, ever, tried to pace her skating to someone else’s. But their strokes line up naturally after a few days of warm-ups together. “Sal okay?” Sara says after one circuit of the rink.

“Of course.”

“Good. Wow, you’ve really never done this before?”

“What? No, I—how can you tell?”

“Slow down. We’re not doing a quad. You and Yuri really never did this?”

“No,” Mila says, suddenly realizing just how out of her depth she is. Sara reaches out and grabs her hand, pulling Mila behind her.

“I’ll be doing most of the work to start. You need to get used to reading my body and watching my feet, so just keep your hand here—” she pins Mila’s right hand to her hip “—and then I’ll—”

She turns them effortlessly as they drift along at about a quarter of Mila’s normal jump lineup speed. Mila feels Sara’s hips and abs flex, posture drawing up tall, watches her skates glide into the Salchow approach, and then her hand is half-pushing, half-following Sara through a single rotation in the air.

She lands only an arm’s length away, but puts her all into the knee and extension. She opens her arms wide. “Ta-da! Congrats, you threw me.”

“I think we’ll have to do it a few more times for me to take any credit for that,” Mila says. Her laugh is breathless; she’s panting as if she just jumped a triple-triple.

They do just that, skating the approach until it feels effortless, until Mila can tell she’s actually giving Sara some height on the single with just the one hand. Sara is full of helpful tips: tighten up your stance, bend your knees with me, watch your back leg.

“Have you ever thought about coaching?” Mila asks her after the fifth ‘throw.’

“Definitely, after I retire. You?”

“No,” Mila says right away. “No way. I’m like Yuri, I’m a disaster around anyone remotely impressionable.”

“You know, once upon a time I would have thought that true of Viktor as well, but looks what he’s pulled off with Yuuri.”

Indeed. “Viktor’s different, he...” Mila struggles to find the word. “Cares?” 

“Must I point out the obvious?”

“No, but go ahead.” They skate towards the gate. The clock over the entryway tells Mila they’ve blown clear through lunch, and her stomach confirms this a moment later.

“You wouldn’t be in the place you are if you didn’t care.”

“Well, of course I care like that. I’m just too selfish for a life like that. I can fight for my own career, but not someone else’s.”

“Hm,” Sara says. She’s silent as they unlace and put on their street shoes. It’s only when they’re outside, the sunlight bright in Mila’s face, that she says, “But you do care.”

Mila can’t tell if she’s agreeing or disagreeing with what Mila said, so she does what she does best and changes the subject. “On a scale of one to ten, how safe do you think it is to eat from one of those?” She points towards the food carts on the bridge.

“A solid eight, I think. Just about as safe as anything is.”

“I’ll take that. Come on,” and they run down the bridge towards the promise of a good meal.

 

—-

 

The rest of the week progresses in the same way: group practice in the morning and lunch hour split between trying pairs moves with Sara and food from each vendor on the bridge. On Friday, Viktor pulls her aside during the warmup.

“I have something to ask you,” he says quietly. The rink is so noisy that it’s unnecessary but Mila goes along with it.

“Yes?”

“Sara and Mickey aren’t going to do a pairs skate. Sara told me last night.”

“Oh,” is all Mila has to say.

“It’s of course up to, but if you wanted to skate with—”

“I am _not_ skating a pair skate with Mickey,” Mila says immediately.

Viktor looks at her blankly. “What? No—Sara. I was going to suggest you skate a duo with Sara.”

“Oh,” Mila says again. “Wouldn’t that be...” She doesn’t know how to end the sentence.

“Wouldn’t be any weirder than Yuuri and I or Otabek and Yuri, would it?”

“I guess not.” Across the rink, Sara is organizing everyone to do a mock speed skating race. She’s smiling in the way that Mila always thought of as ‘fake.’ _It’s not fake. She’s just always that happy and excited. Like a decent fucking person._ “Who will choreograph?” she says to Viktor.

“Pick a song you like and see how it goes. Sara has choreographed in the past.”

“She suggested it?”

“No, it was my brilliant idea.” Viktor beams. “But I’ll let her know you’re down and the two of you can work it out.”

He does, pulling Sara aside in turn after Mila goes to warm up. Mila watches them as she goes through her routine. Sara listens to Viktor attentively (her listening face is so much more pleasant than Mila’s) and when Viktor gets down to it she smiles—a huge one, where her eyes crinkle. She glances across the rink and, when she sees Mila, gives her a little thumbs up. Mila returns it. 

Today, they walk back to Yuu-topia with everyone else for lunch. Sara wastes no time in bouncing up beside Mila. “Any ideas for music?”

Enthusiasm is radiating out of her. “Not yet,” says Mila slowly. “Can we agree now, though, that all Tchaikovsky and Puccini pieces are out?”

“Those are fair terms.”

One bit of her conversation with Viktor is sticking in her brain, so Mila just asks, “When did you choreograph?”

“Only a couple times since I became a senior. My third season, the one where I medaled at Euros, I think? Which was—”

“My first Euros, I remember.” Truth be told, Mila had forgotten up until this moment. She had debuted at Euros rather the GP series, and she could really only recall the horribly overwhelming combination of terror and exhilaration that culminated in her first medal in her first competition of her senior career. “And you didn’t just medal, you got gold.”

“Ah, right.”

“‘Ah, right,’” mocks Mila. “You can’t fool me with your false modesty.”

“Will you be very surprised,” Sara sighs, “if I tell you that I just have a terrible memory?”

“Can’t keep track of all the times you’ve beaten me?”

“No, definitely not,” Sara says right away and Mila cracks up.

 

—-

 

They sit in the courtyard and trade song ideas until Sara suggests they go soak. Mila readily agrees. It would be a lot weirder, she thinks as she enters the blissfully hot water, if they weren’t both athletes. They’re used to this. They were basically raised in locker rooms.

Still, Mila averts her eyes when Sara slips into the tub. Her dark hair is pulled up in one of those perfectly messy buns that Mila had never been able to manage when she had long hair. It accentuates the slope of Sara’s shoulders even more than the wide-necked skating costumes she favors or the sleeveless dresses Mila’s seen her wear. The steam, which makes Mila terrifyingly red, just makes Sara’s skin look lit from within.

She’s staring. She looks up quickly, to meet Sara’s eyes. Sara just smiles, totally genuine. It makes Mila feel twice as guilty.

 _I wonder_ , Mila thinks, _if she doesn’t notice, or if she just doesn’t let on that she notices._

The bath is full tonight, of what Mila is realizing is the local crowd. Most of them ignore Mila and Sara, except for one of the younger women, who is eyeing Mila. Or, more specifically her hair. She smiles when Mila meets her gaze and says something in Japanese.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Japanese,” Mila says in her clearest English.

“Your hair,” the woman says, also in strongly-accented English. “It is like that?”

It turns out the woman is asking if it’s her natural color and Mila gets pulled into a jumbled, hilarious conversation about hair dye. She totally forgets about Sara until the other woman leaves—and when she looks around, Mila realizes she must have gone back in. Mila hurries out and dresses quickly, feeling slightly guilty. But everything is totally normal at dinner and Sara sits next to Mila when they all go out in the courtyard after eating. 

Mickey talks Yuuri’s father into opening a bottle of whiskey (“Yamakazi, single malt, one of the smoothest you’ll ever have,” he keeps saying as they all try it) and Mila kicks back in her chair and sips it in between laughing at Emil’s jokes and Viktor’s stories.

“All right, Yuuri,” Sara says. “It’s Friday night. What does one do in Hasetsu on a Friday night?”

“Well, we could see a movie,” Yuuri says thoughtfully.

“Next,” Yuri says.

“Drinks at the snack bar?”

“We go there every night,” Emil says.

“All-you-can-eat sushi?”

“That’s better,” says Mila.

“Followed by karaoke,” says Yuuri.

“Perfect.” Sara clasps her hands together. “That’s the plan then.”

It takes awhile for everyone to grab jackets and find wallets and congregate at the front door. The velvet twilight wraps around Mila as they all walk together. Sara is asking everyone their favorite karaoke songs—Emil belts out some jazz song to the whole group until Mickey elbows him to be quiet.

“Half the city can hear you,” Mickey says.

“The lucky half!” Emil says, and everyone laughs.

The restaurant is in a little strip halfway between the inn and the market. The owner hurries forward to greet Yuuri upon entering, and ushers them through the restaurant. As they weave through the tables, Mila sees a tiny kid, probably around three, standing backwards on his chair staring at them. They all file past the table to reach the rear nook and Mila, at the back of the group, realizes he’s staring at Yuuri in particular. As the owner slides the shoji closed behind them, he shrieks something in his little piping voice. Mila gets ‘ _mama_ ’ and ' _Katsuki-san_ ’ but judging by Yuuri’s laugh and subsequent blush it’s something good. The last thing they hear before the panel snaps shut is his mortified parent shushing him.

“A fan?” Mila asks Yuuri as they all find a seat. 

“If I may,” Viktor says, “I think it was something along the lines of, ‘Mama, it’s Katsuki-san and his devilishly handsome husband!’”

“Certainly embellished but a solid translation otherwise,” Yuuri says, smiling. The table laughs.

Mila laughs. “That’s never happened to me in Pita.”

“It happens more often when I’m with Viktor. I can blend in solo but with him—”

“There are only so many tall Russians in Hasetsu,” Viktor says.

“Especially ones with thinning silver hair,” Yuri puts in from the other end of the table.

“It’s not thinning, is it?” Sara’s pulling the menus from the stand in the center and passing them out. “I can’t tell at all.”

“It’s in the height difference. I’m tall enough to have a good angle at all times. Go stand behind him now, you’ll see it.”

“I am coming to terms with the fact,” Viktor says, “that I am losing hair, but let’s _please_ not turn this into a petting zoo.”

“You would look good with any amount of hair,” Sara says. “And it’ll be balanced out by Yuuri’s side in your children, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Mila says, laughing. Sara looks surprised, and Mila laughs harder when it transforms to embarrassed. Viktor and Yuuri are chuckling as well.

“I didn’t even think,” Sara says. “I feel like I know more gay couples with children at this point that straight ones. But you want them, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Yuuri says. “It’s just a matter of time.”

“And settling down,” Viktor adds. “Probably once Yuuri retires.”

“If you don’t name me godmother, I’ll sue both of you,” Mila says. “The two of you are going to be shit at discipline, so I’ll have to be Aunt Hard-Ass.”

“That’s the name we’ll put on the christening certificate. ‘Witnessed by Aunt Hard-Ass,’” Viktor deadpans. They all crack up. 

A waiter comes into the room to ask if they want drinks and Viktor orders sakė for the table. In the lull, Sara turns to Mila. “Feelings on children the same as on coaching?”

“Got it in one,” says Mila. “I can barely keep myself alive. I can’t think about having to keep another person alive too.”

“It’s easier to consider with a partner,” Viktor says. “It’s not meant to be done alone.”

“If it can’t be done alone, I’m not doing it,” Mila says lightly. “I’d rather be the spinster aunt who drinks too much vodka and tells them stories about their fathers’ wild youth in between scolding them about getting their schoolwork done.” Yuuri is pouring the newly-arrived sakėand she takes the first proffered glass. “We can’t all be perfect examples of homo-monogamy.”

“I’m sorry, who’s perfect?” Yuuri asks as he passes more glasses down the table.

“Certainly not us,” Viktor says airily. He pours sakė for Yuuri and then brandishes his own cup. “Can I do the toast tonight?”

“A very short one, and only to anyone who’s already listening,” Yuuri says, which is just him, Sara and Mila. The four boys at the other end are already having a heated conversation about a movie or a video game or something else that Mila knows nothing about.

“All right, then. Here’s to love in all its many beautiful forms, the ones we’ve already experienced, and the ones we’ve yet to know. Cheers!”

“Cheers!” Mila says along with Yuuri and Sara, and the four of them clink their glasses in the center of the table before drinking. 

“That was lovely, Viktor,” Sara says. “You really have a way with words.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Mila says, but she smiles at Viktor over the rim of her cup. He grins in return. “Yuuri, are you going to order for us? I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“It’s not too complicated.” Yuuri spreads the menu in the middle of the table so all of them can lean over it. “See, there are pictures.”

There are, full-color photos of the different items, but other than salmon Mila has no idea how to distinguish one from another. She taps a finger on a photo at the bottom. “What’s this one?”

“Good choice. That’s _toro_ , a kind of tuna roll.”

“Let’s do it, then.” She looks over at Sara—who isn’t looking back. She’s on her phone, in fact, which Mila can’t remember ever seeing. Her case is a phone-sized version of the rosebud emoji. “Sara. What do you think?”

“Hm?” Sara’s gaze jumps up to meet Mila’s; Mila slides the menu towards her and Sara gives it a cursory look. “Sure, sounds fine.” She pushes the plastic-coated menu away, towards Yuuri.

Her blank smile is back on her face. It makes Mila plant her hand on the menu, over Sara’s. “We can get another one, or more. You usually get more than one kind, right, Yuuri?”

“Usually,” Yuuri says.

“I’m fine with whatever you all decide,” Sara says. She frees her hand from under Mila’s and reaches for her cup.

Her whole face looks frozen in place, even as she drinks. “You’ve never had sushi before, have you?” Mila guesses.

Sara chokes. She sets the cup down and looks between the three of them. “Never,” she confesses. “I’m a little nervous.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Yuuri exclaims. “It’s fine to be nervous. We could have gone somewhere else, even.”

“No! No, this is part of the experience.” She inhales deeply through her nose, then exhales. “I’ll try everything you recommend.”

In the end, Yuuri orders for them and then, when the food arrives, patiently explains each item to Sara. She listens attentively, bottom lip set between her teeth except when she asks a question. Mila is growing hungrier by the second but she follows Viktor’s lead and sits in silence. _Is Yuuri okay with this?_ she mouths to him over their heads. It feels more than a little unfair, to have him play guide at dinner after a long day.

Viktor nods, though, and mouths back, _I think he enjoys it. The sharing._

Yuuri seems to be—he’s now explaining the difference between different kinds of tuna. And as the conversation has moved from the practical to the theoretical, Mila feels it’s okay to interrupt.

“You can’t avoid taking your first bite forever,” she says. “Come on, we’ll do it together.”

The fish—Mila grabbed a piece of the _toro_ , the first one Yuuri picked—is absolutely beautiful. It melts to pieces in her mouth right away. But even as she savors it, her eyes are on Sara and the way she’s carefully chewing her bit of salmon.

She swallows and looks at Yuuri. “Wow. That’s amazing.”

Yuuri sighs, relieved; Viktor claps his hands together around his chopsticks. “We’ll convert you yet!”

“Don’t you eat seafood in Naples?” Mila asks as they all take another piece.

“I guess. I never ate much of it. I was a picky kid,” Sara says.

“‘Kid,’” Mila repeats flatly. Sara shoots her a look and pops the sushi into her mouth.

“I’m evolving, if you would be so kind as to allow me,” she says around it.

“By all means,” Mila says.

 

—-

 

The karaoke place is just a few storefronts down from the restaurant, so everyone bundles out of the restaurant together. “So, karaoke,” Mila says to Sara. “Have you experienced that before?”

“Not this kind, no,” Sara says. She pulls the elastic off her wrist and twists her long hair into a sloppy bun atop her head. “But I’m ready.”

When they reach the front doors, Yuri and Mickey and Emil are already at the counter arguing over which room to choose. “We’re not getting the _Hello Kitty_ room,” Mickey is saying.

“Why not? Look how cute it is.” Emil points at the photo on the wall behind the bored attendant; a giant, plush Hello Kitty features prominently.

“No,” Mickey says flatly. “What’s the Red Room?”

“Like the _50 Shades_ Red Room?” Emil sounds doubtful.

“Really?” comes Yuuri’s voice. He leans over so he can look.

“Or that weird American show. Twin Peaks?” Sara puts in.

“No fucking _way_ ,” snaps Yuri. “We’re getting the Tiger room. It’s the only one available, anyway.”

“Convenient,” Mila says under her breath.

“Not convenient, just true,” Yuri says, rolling his eyes at her.

Technically, the Tiger room is only supposed to fit six people, but the attendant takes their money and drink orders and shows them to the room all the same. The disco ball in the ceiling sends shards of multicolored light across the weathered red paint and candy-red bench seat. Mila ends up on the edge of the cracked pleather seat with Sara on the floor before her. Viktor and Yuuri and Otabek take the rest of the bench with Yuri at Otabek’s feet; Mickey and Emil get to work figuring out the system. As everyone settles, Yuri tips his head back so it rests against Otabek’s knee and Otabek, without looking, places a hand in Yuri’s loose hair. Yuri closes his eyes.

“Do you have a go-to song?” Sara’s voice pulls Mila back to Sara at her feet—she’s twisted around so she can look at Mila.

“I usually do ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’ It’s—”

“A classic. My first coach flat-out refused to let me skate to it when I was seven.”

“Seven?! When I was seven, all I wanted was to skate to Swan Lake.”

“Tchaikovsky? Shocking.” Mila kicks her, lightly, and Sara laughs. She pulls her knees up and leans against the wall. Now she’s facing Mila instead of craning her head around. “I had a slight obsession with songs and movies about unhealthy romantic attachments.”

Mila feels her eyebrows go up. “What, like Disney princesses and pop songs?”

“Much worse, I’m afraid. Mickey and I were raised on the classics, so I knew _Bohème_ before I knew the national anthem. When we were very small, my mother managed to get tickets for a performance at the San Carlo. I had to sit on her lap to see over the balcony bar.”

Every professional skater has heard _La bohème_ ’s themes an infinite number of times, but Mila can’t remember ever thinking about it as a _show_ , a full-length opera that’s performed for an audience. “So where does Bonnie Tyler fit into that?”

“My father. His classics were American 80’s pop music, much to my mother’s chagrin.”

There’s a screech of feedback, followed by a irritated shriek from Yuri and a shouted apology from Emil. “We’ve got it working!” Emil yells.

“We _know_ ,” Yuri snaps, but the opening chords of a Michael Jackson song is already filling the room and he’s drowned out quickly. Emil’s MJ falsetto is actually pretty passable, and he’s got the group singing and dancing along in no time—even Mickey, who seems to know every word to the fast-paced song. But then, if there’s an artist who’s the definition of classic 80’s American pop, Mila supposes it would be Michael Jackson.

Viktor does a Mariah Carey song next, singing it straight to Yuuri. Yuri takes this as a chance to order a round of vodka for everyone, and they down them just as Viktor hits the key change. 

“You know,” Yuri says as the song fades and he cues up another one, “that’s a song about breaking up.”

“No, it isn’t,” Viktor says. His face is deeply flushed, from the alcohol or from hitting that high C, Mila isn’t sure. “It’s about everlasting _love_.”

“Right, _after_ a break-up.”

“Mila,” Viktor cries, “tell him it’s about everlasting love.”

She looks between Viktor’s plaintive face and Yuri’s narrowed eyes. “Well,” she starts, but she’s saved by the “Eye of the Tiger” lyrics popping up on screen and the guitar chords blaring through the speakers. Yuri throws himself into it immediately. 

Under cover of the music, Sara turns to whisper in Mila’s ear. “Technically it _is_ a song about breaking up...”

“He can never know,” Mila says, and places a finger over Sara’s lips. “You better not spill.”

“Never,” Sara says. “Are you going to sing?”

“Soon,” Mila says. Yuri is giving the song his all, and his flush is definitely from the alcohol. All the boys are singing along (even Viktor, the Mariah slight already forgotten). “You?”

“I’m psyching myself up,” Sara says determinedly. Her dimples are more obvious when she’s trying not to smile, like now. “I need at least one more drink.”

There’s a lot more 80’s classics, shared between Viktor and Emil and Mickey, and at some point Yuri and Otabek do that song from the Grease credits that Yuri loves so much. They turn to 90’s pop eventually and then, after several more group sing-alongs and drink rounds, Mickey signals to Sara across the room. “You’re up, _rella_ ,” he says.

Sara downs the rest of her wine before standing. “Wish me luck,” she says to Mila.

Mickey hands her the mic once she reaches the tiny stage, but only after announcing, “Sara Crispino, everyone,” to the room. Sara bows slightly to the scattered applause (from Viktor and Yuuri, who are the only ones really paying attention at this point).

“Thank you,” she says. “Please go easy on me; this is my first time.”

“Woo, go Sara!” Yuuri cheers, followed by a piercing wolf whistle from Viktor. Mickey looks irritably at the two of them, but Viktor is saved yet again by the music starting.

“ _When I was young_ ,” Sara sings, “ _I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun..._ ” Her voice is shaky, nerves clear in the way she grips the mic like a lifeline. Mila woops in encouragement and Sara’s eyes land on her. A smile slowly blooms across Sara’s face as she makes it through the verse, dimples deep in her cheeks, and she launches into the chorus with gusto.

And fucking _nails_ it. “ _All by myself, don’t wanna be_...” even the absurd belted ‘self’ right at the end. She not showing off, either, the way everyone else has; she’s just singing, eyes closed now, and _enjoying_ singing.

She bows again when the song finishes and the applause is much louder this time. “You _killed_ it,” Viktor says as she sits.

“Thank you, thank you,” she says, beaming.

“You can really sing,” Mila says.

“Oh,” she scoffs, waving a hand, “please. I’m all right.” She looks down at her empty wine glass.

“Take the compliment,” Mila says. 

Sara’s eyes flick up to Mila’s. “Thank you,” says Sara. She smiles, and Mila returns it.

“Hey, who added ‘Total Eclipse’?” Mickey calls out. “It’s up.”

“Oh, I added it for you!” Sara says. She takes Mila’s drink and pushes her up to stand. “Go, go, go!”

Mila obeys, taking the mic from Emil and stepping up on the little stage. The tiny room seems to expand as the piano _plinks_ out the opening notes. No one is looking at her: Yuuri and Viktor are talking on the couch and Mickey and Emil against the wall. Otabek is checking his phone and Yuri, against his knees, looks asleep—then Mila sees his hand stroking over the inside of Otabek’s ankle.

“ _Every now and then I get a little bit lonely, and you're never coming round..._ ”

The last time Mila had sung this song, it’d been at karaoke night at her favorite bar in her neighborhood in St. Petersburg, just after Christmas. Dom had been there, and Yuri had sung the backup with her on stage, even though it was included in the backing track. Tonight, he leans up to Otabek to whisper something as Mila starts to sing. Mila can’t hear over the music, but he’s frowning when he turns back and Otabek’s “ _We can leave soon if you want_ ,” carries even in an undertone.

Mila looks away quickly, back to the monitor. Even though she knows the song by heart, could sing it in her sleep, she stares as the words flick from white to yellow, as if she’s never seen them before. “ _I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark, we're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks..._ ”

There’s a flutter of movement in the corner of her field of vision. Sara has stood and she’s motioning to Emil and Mickey. “Come sit and watch,” she’s calling to them. “You’re in the way.”

Mickey does so immediately, Emil trailing, and then Mila watches in awe as Sara yells something at each individual person in the room—”Come on, Beka, don’t be rude—Viktor, I know _you_ know this song—Emil, liven up, let’s go, ”—until all of them are looking at Mila, and then as Sara sits herself right in the middle and leads the group in singing along with Mila.

“ _And I need you now tonight, and I need you more than ever_ ,” Mila sings and Sara along with her, the boys all following with varying levels of success. “Yes! Sing it, Mila!” She claps and cheers; everyone else does, too. It’s incredible. Mila closes her eyes and gives the last few lines her all.

“ _Once upon a time there was light in my life, but now there's only love in the dark_ —”

“I love this part,” Viktor sighs, and Yuri elbows him. “Listen!” Yuri hisses. “Oh, are we being a good audience now?” Yuuri says mildly.

“ _Nothing I can say: a total eclipse of the heart_.”

Sara cheers, everyone applauds, Viktor whistles again. Mila allows herself a sweeping bow, hand over her heart. “My idol!” Viktor calls. “I need your autograph!” Sara shrieks.

“Well, since no one’s going to top that, I think we should call it a night,” Yuuri says when the hubbub dies down. There’s a murmur of agreement and everyone gathers jackets and settles bills and then they’re on their way back to the inn.

The group strings out on the walk, Yuuri and Viktor bobbing along in the lead and Yuri and Otabek trailing along behind. A slight breeze ruffles through Mila’s hair as she half-jogs to catch up to Sara. They walk in silence, Sara looking up at the sky above them, until Mila says, “Hey—thank you.”

Sara smiles. Mila smiles back.

Everyone heads for their rooms immediately upon returning to the inn, except Mila. The buzz of alcohol and excitement zinging through her forecasts a night of sleeplessness and the thought of closing herself up in the tiny room is unbearable. Instead, she lets herself into the central courtyard and sits there with a glass of water.

If she were in Pita, she would be convincing Luc to go down to Achtung Baby. Her night would have barely begun. It feels so far away, further than the crescent moon hanging just above the gray-green roof tiles.

The _shush_ of the _shoji_ sliding open startles her out of the reverie. “What are you doing out here?” comes Sara’s voice.

“Admiring the moon,” Mila says, matching her quiet tone.

Another _shush_ as the panel closes and then Sara, dressed in an old ice show tank and sweats, sits beside her. “Can’t sleep?”

Mila _mmm_ s in assent.

“You’re still in your street clothes. You haven’t tried.”

Mila elbows her. “Hush. Look at the moon.”

Sara glances up, and even the little bit of moonlight throws her profile into sharp relief: the little slope of her round nose, her full cheekbones and high brow. Her hair is still twisted into the loose bun from karaoke.

“She’s very beautiful tonight,” Sara says. “Come on.” She stands and holds out her hand.

Mila opens her mouth to protest, explain, laugh it off—but instead she finds her hand rising to take Sara’s. Sara pulls her up, back inside, down the hall—past Mila’s bedroom—and up the stairs. Once they’re inside Sara’s room, Sara pulls a t-shirt out of her suitcase and offers it to Mila wordlessly.

Mila has to let go of Sara’s hand to undress and put it on. Sara turns away, giving her some privacy, and fusses around near the futon: plugging her phone in, putting lotion on her hands, drinking a glass of water. Her nighttime routine, clearly. Witnessing it feels intimate on a level beyond anything Mila’s experienced before.

She’s putting her hair up more securely when Mila finishes. The shirt barely comes down to the hem of her underwear, but neither of them comment on it. Neither of them have said anything since they left the courtyard, Mila realizes, and they both stay silent as Sara slides under the covers and moves up against the wall, leaving ample space for Mila. 

The blankets are cool and crisp against her bare legs. So is the pillow against her cheek. A bubble of hysterical amusement nearly breaks through the peaceful dark when they’re finally both laying there, side by side. She has never shared a bed with anyone other than Inga unless it was after sex. _What are you doing? Are you going to lay here awake all night instead?_

“Night,” Sara murmurs sleepily. She shifts, rolling over to face away from Mila.

“Night,” Mila says back. Her mind begins spin with the absurdity, the gentle nonchalance with which Sara led her here, the fact that they’re not even _touching_. But exhaustion suddenly hits her like a train and, when sleep follows closely behind, she has time to only feel mild surprise.

 

—-

 

Nothing changes after that.

Mila wakes up early. The rom is quiet, a shaft of sunlight splayed on the wall opposite, just above the door. She looks to her other side, where Sara is still sleeping. Most of her hair escaped from the twist during the night and is now spread out across her pillow. Mila just watches her for several minutes before she realizes what she’s doing. She carefully slips out of the bed, grabs her clothes, and goes down to her own room.

The whole way, she listens carefully for the sounds of anyone else who might be awake. The sleeping quarters are silent, though, and Mila remembers once she’s brushing her teeth that it’s Saturday. Especially after last night, everyone will be sleeping soundly.

The baths, however, are bustling. Mila speeds through her soak; she’s used to being surrounded by several discussions in multiple languages but on this particular morning it’s a little bit too much for her brain to handle. The restaurant is much emptier, and Mari serves her with a smile and no chatter, which is fine by Mila.

She has multiple texts she should answer—mainly ones from Inga. The latest says, “` _i have news! call me!!!!_`” and Mila makes a mental note to call later, when it isn’t the middle of the night in St. Petersburg. She’s scrolling through her camera roll, looking for a good photo to post to her neglected Instagram, when the chair across from her is pulled back and Yuuri sits down. “Morning,” he says, smiling. He has his own bowl and they eat in silence for a few moments before he asks, “How was your sister’s gala? Things have been so crazy I haven’t even had the chance to ask.”

It all comes back to her at once, like a fucking wartime montage: Yuliya’s thin, disapproving mouth the night before Mila left. Inga’s blazing smile after her performance. Nick’s parting words and the slam of her bedroom door behind him. “Beautiful,” Mila says. “If she hasn’t had offers already, she will soon.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Viktor showed me the clip she posted on Twitter. Her lines are so lovely.” He sets his chopsticks aside and picks up his teacup instead. He rests his elbows on the table. “How was the time with your family?”

Mila puts her own chopsticks down. “What has Viktor told you?”

“Nothing,” Yuuri says quickly. “Well, I suppose—”

“Of course,” sighs Mila.

“Nothing much, I promise,” Yuuri says. “Just that—well, you have a difficult relationship with your mom.”

Mila picks her chopsticks back up, tapping them on the table before scraping together her remaining grains of rice. “That is an understatement.” She puts the rice in her mouth and chews for much longer than necessary. Yuuri looks away. Then Mila finds herself saying, “It was difficult.”

Yuuri looks back at her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “Did something in particular happen?”

Mila shakes her head. Then nods. Yuuri’s expression remains the same, patient and neutral. Mila takes a deep breath and opens her mouth.

Just then, Viktor emerges from the restaurant’s kitchen area, clipboard already in hand. “Morning,” he says sunnily, slipping into the chair beside Yuuri. “How are the two of you feeling?”

“Great,” says Yuuri. He’s still looking at Mila, but when she looks away, at Viktor, Yuuri does too.

“My head hurts, but mostly from that high C you tried to hit last night,” Mila says. She flips her phone back over on the table to check the notifications. “While you slept, the neighborhood cats crowned you their new king.”

Viktor laughs while he leafs through his papers. “I accept with gratitude.”

Mila pushes away her empty bowl. “What are the two of you up to today?”

“Meeting with the Nishigoris about final details,” Yuuri says. He takes one of the sheets of paper from Viktor. “We haven’t gotten nearly the level of interest from vendors that I expected, so we need to put our heads together on a solution.”

“Vendors? What?”

“Yes, for the show.” Yuuri looks between her and Viktor. “Did we not tell you about this part?”

Mila leans back in her chair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It was something Yuuko and I were throwing around that I decided to chase—inviting local vendors to set up in the lobby and courtyard. It’ll give Hasetsu a chance to showcase itself beyond its local figure skating legends.” Yuuri smiles, eyes sparkling, to acknowledge his hand in Hasetsu’s renown. “But I think it’ll take a more personal effort to convince them.”

“That’s... what a lovely idea, Yuuri,” Mila says, because it is. It is exactly the kind of thoughtful thing Yuuri would think of—and follow up on. 

Yuuri sighs, pushing his bangs out of his face. “I hope so. We might have to it the old-fashioned way and actually hand out flyers.”

“It’ll work out,” Viktor says. “Yuuko and Takeshi will have some ideas.”

Yuuri smiles and nods.

Mila does her rink time, both reviewing the opener’s choreo and skipping through possible pairs songs, and then yoga on the beach for her off-ice cardio. She misses her cycling class and thinks wistfully of the poky gym off Nevsky, even though she’s not sure she made it there often enough to make her Unlimited pass worth the money. But still. It was so much _fun_ when she did.

The onsen is awake when Mila gets back. Mari is out on the rear porch hanging the never-ending laundry out to dry. Mila returns her nod and almost walks right past Sara, who is sitting there with a cup of coffee in hand, feet hanging over the edge.

“Oh—morning,” Mila says.

“Morning,” says Sara. “Sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” Mila says. She thinks about just going on into the house but instead she sits down next to Sara. “I have a song to play you.”

“Oh, good!” Sara sets her coffee aside, the picture of an attentive listener.

Mila queues up the older Flume song that caught her earlier at the rink. Rather than play it through her phone’s fucked-up speakers, she offers an earbud to Sara, putting the other in her own.

Like she always does, Sara listens with full concentration, staring off into the distance. When it ends, she reaches over to start it again. Her face gives nothing away, so Mila also looks out to the horizon. The sky is almost entirely clouded over but here and there are a few strips of blue sky. The ever-present gulls scream to each other above the noise of the surf.

The replay ends and Sara tugs the earbud out. Mila holds her breath for the verdict. 

“I love it,” says Sara.

“You do?!” Mila’s voice squeaks with surprise.

Sara hands the headphones back. “Did you think I’d veto it?”

“I mean... it’s pretty out there.”

“It’s good to get out of your comfort zone,” Sara says simply. “Or, so I hear.”

Mila laughs. The flowing feeling of ease between them is back in full force, glowing in her chest. She holds her hand up for a high-five and Sara obliges, grinning. 

“Mila!” Yuuri’s voice has them both turning immediately—he’s sticking his head out the back door. “Oh, and Sara. Perfect.” He comes out of the house and towards them. He has a folder in his hand and more papers pinned under his arm.

“Hi, Yuuri,” Sara says just as Mila says, “What’s up?”

“I need your help with a project,” he says. “Both of you, if you’re willing, Sara.”

“Of course,” Sara says. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know if Mila told you about our idea to get the locals involved with the event, but we’ve come up with some ways to do it.” He kneels beside them and opens the folder, which is full of one-page flyers covered in Japanese text. “I think people will respond much better to something with a more personal touch, so Yuuko and I put these together. The Sunday market tomorrow morning is the perfect time to hand them out to vendors but I also had to schedule a call with one of the rink sponsors, and, well, I was hoping—”

“You have a million other little things to attend to,” Sara says. “Of course we can. Mila and I will knock this out of the park.” She looks over at Mila. 

The unspoken _Won’t we_? hangs in the air until Mila says, “We will. We’re definitely the most charming duo out of the group, anyway. They won’t be able to say no.”

“Thank you, so much. Really,” Yuuri says. “I’ll have it all ready for you in the morning.”

 

—-

 

That’s how Mila finds herself with a map of Hasetsu’s “downtown” (if it can even be called that) in one hand and a tote bag of fliers in the other bright and early on Sunday morning. They take the bus in towards Hasetsu's open-air market, which is marked on Yuuri's hand-drawn map with a big smiley face. "Just say you're with the rink," he told them.

"I have the feeling you're going to be much better at this than I am," Sara says as the bus rolls up to their stop. They're further inland; the smell of the ocean and the cries of the gulls have been replaced by honking horns and talking people and all the other infinite sounds that define a city's center, regardless of size. The river flows along the main street, back towards the coast.

"I probably will be," Mila says airily, and Sara cracks a grin.

They walk side by side towards the market, which is a mass of little shops and tents and carts. The sun is (blessedly) out, and Mila slips her hoodie off to tie it around her waist. The fliers are safely in a tote bag looped over Sara's shoulder.

"What's the game plan?" Sara says when they're only a block away. "Who talks first?"

"Let's alternate. I'll take the first one."

"What are you going to say?"

"I don't know, I'll wing it," Mila says. She looks over at Sara, who’s tugging her sun hat lower over her forehead, throwing her eyes into deeper shade. The smile she musters as they approach the first vendor—an older woman, standing behind a cart full of persimmons—is wide and bright, however.

"Hello!" Mila says. She holds out her hand to Sara for a flier, but Sara is looking distractedly at one of the bright orange persimmons and Mila has to elbow her. Sara startles, looks at Mila's hand, and hurriedly whips out one of the papers. "How are you today? We're from the Hasetsu Ice Castle..." Mila trails off when she realizes that the woman is looking at her with an entirely blank expression. She speaks louder. "We're from the Hasetsu Ice Castle and we're asking local vendors to participate in an event happening next week." She holds out the flier. 

The vendor looks at it, and recognition blooms across her face, followed quickly by a wide smile. She takes the flier, nodding enthusiastically, and starts speaking in a quick flow of Japanese. The only words Mila catches are _Yuuri Katsuki_ and _Hasetsu_ and _ice skating_.

"Oh my god," Mila murmurs, understanding suddenly washing over her as the woman chatters on. "None of them are going to speak English."

Sara starts laughing, helplessly.

 

—-

 

They get coffee from one of the shops in the central section of the market, which is dedicated to food vendors, and try to come up with a plan. "I can't fucking believe this. I didn't even think about it. Why did Yuuri send us here?"

"Obviously he forgot, or he just meant for us to hand them out without chatting," Sara says. She had laughed herself almost into hysteria before Mila dragged her away from the poor befuddled persimmon woman. "He didn't ask us to give a verbal spiel, I suppose."

"No, I guess he didn't. So he just wanted us to hand them out." Mila takes a long drink of the terrible coffee. "That's easier, I guess."

Sara giggles. "This is so absurd. Oh my god. You were about to go in there and sell it to them like your life depended on it."

"It was going to be magnificent," Mila says forlornly, and Sara's giggles turn into a choked laugh.

In the end, they simply go to each vendor and hand them the flier and then smile and nod while the recipient speaks. Some obviously have questions, but the fliers are in Japanese as well and Mila can only point to the phone number at the bottom (Yuuko's office line) in response.

"My ego is taking a real hit," Mila whispers to Sara as they leave one deeply skeptical man to ponder the flier amongst his array of chopsticks. "I really thought my Japanese was stronger. Yuuri said I had a good accent."

"If a good accent was all it took to be fluent, then I'd be fluent in just about any language," Sara whispers back. “Here, watch this.” And Mila watches as Sara introduces herself at the next stall in a flawless British accent. It’s totally lost on the vendor, but Mila has to bite her lips together to keep from cracking up. 

“Which other can you do?” Mila asks when they’re moving on to the next.

“I’m really proud of my ability to speak Italian in an American accent,” Sara says, and Mila is totally unable to hold it together when Sara does it for the next vendor. She has to turn away, tears in her eyes, until Sara pulls her away by the elbow, grinning widely.

“You missed your calling,” Mila tells her.

Sara rolls up her sleeves. “I’m just getting started. Save your praise for later, please.”

 

—-

 

The market is not nearly as large as it looked when they first entered, and they finish shortly after noon. Sara buys one of the beautiful sushi hand rolls and Mila buys okonomiyaki, which isn’t nearly as good as the one from the woman on Hasetsu Bridge. They walk back towards the bus stop as the eat, along the river. Unlike St. Petersburg’s ornate embankments, here the water simply flows bordered by muddy grass. 

“What are you thinking?” Sara asks. She has her hands laced behind her back as they walk, like a ballet dancer.

“I’m just looking at the river,” Mila says. “It reminds me of Pita.”

“That’s right. The many canals.”

“Do you ever think about...” Mila stops herself.

“Do I think about what?” Sara’s looking past Mila, out at the water. In the flat, gray light, her eyes are colorless.

“Do you ever think about how we—humans, I mean, insist on living in places we were never meant to live in?”

“Like Pita?”

“Yes. One of these days, it’ll slide off the shores and into the ocean. And all of us along with it.”

“Not for ages, certainly.”

“Eventually, though.”

“Long after we’re gone.”

“Yes, I suppose. Our places of birth will outlive us all.”

“If we’re lucky.” Now Sara’s looking at Mila. One of her dimples is showing. “What’s put you in such a maudlin mood?”

“I don’t know. The weather. The future. You know. I usually avoid thinking about it.”

“You avoid thinking about the future.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” Sara says. “I think about it all the time.”

“Unrelatable,” Mila says. She pulls out her phone to check how much farther the train station is.

Sara’s laughing under her breath. It’s less of a bubble and more of a hiccup when she’s quieter. “I should have known you were more of a ‘live-in-the-moment’ type.”

“I am the most live-in-the-moment type you could ever meet,” Mila says airily. They still have half a kilometer to go. She slips her phone back into her hoodie pocket.

“You know what’s funny?” Sara says. “Before getting to know the three of you, I would have pegged Viktor and Yuri as way more impulsive than you.”

“Oh, they are. They’re as impulsive as they come. Day to day, I’m the sensible one. But they both know what they want out of life. Maybe not down to specifics, but the general outline.”

“Right, but they both went through a lot to get to that point. Viktor chased Yuuri halfway around the globe. And Yuri basically did the same, to Otabek.”

“Almost entirely by accident.” Mila shakes her head wordlessly. “I felt the smallest amount of vindication when he had a bit of an awkward phase, right before puberty. But he made it through anyway and medaled at Worlds to boot.”

“Mmm. They usually do.” Sara sighs. She pushes her sunglasses back. “My mom used to tell me that I would have to work twice as hard for half as much. And that I could waste time complaining about it and feeling sorry for myself. Or I could decide what I wanted and work my ass off to get it.”

Mila finds herself shivering involuntarily, even though the air is warm and muggy. “Yeah. That’s familiar.”

“But yet you say you don’t think about the future?” Sara raises her eyebrows.

“Not in that way. Ack, it’s hard to explain.” Mila searches for the words. “When it’s a specific goal, like, ‘learn the triple flip,’ or, ‘medal at Euros,’ it’s different. I just can’t... I feel like...” _They’re leaving me behind_ is the end of that sentence, but Mila can’t bring herself to say it out loud. It feels too self-pitying. She shakes her hair out of her face. “Where the fuck is that train station?” She checks her phone.

Sara looks over when Mila doesn’t say anything. “What is it?”

Mila double checks the directions to make sure. “I have some bad news.”

“Oh dear.”

“We’ve been going in the wrong direction this whole time.”

Sara stares at her for a moment. Then she bursts out laughing. And after a second, Mila has to join in.

 

—-

 

Georgi and Raisa are there at dinner, so it is twice as noisy of an affair as usual. If Georgi was reticent (with the occasional bout of weeping) while single, he is positively chatty now that he’s married. He would dominate the conversation were it not for Raisa, who talks and laughs with so much enthusiasm that Mila feels like energy is being injected directly into her veins. Everyone is louder by half at least and by the end of the evening her ribs are so sore from laughing she has to press a palm flat against them.

They’ve all finished eating and are sitting around just chatting when Mila’s phone lights up with a phone call. It’s Inga, and Mila remembers she was supposed to call her a few days ago. She slips out of the house and onto the back porch to answer it.

“Hi, bunny,” she says.

“Mila!” Inga’s smile is clear in her voice. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I’m sorry, it’s been so crazy here,” Mila says, which isn’t _un_ true. “How are you? What’s your news?”

“Mila, I’m wonderful, you won’t believe it.”

“Vladimir Urin called you personally to invite you to join the Bolshoi,” Mila guesses, sitting on the edge of the porch.

“Better.”

“What could be better than that?!”

“ _New York_! The City Ballet wants me in their corps! Can you believe it?!”

Mila is speechless. She thinks of Inga, her baby sister, on the streets and stages of New York City, living her dream. Inga, whose laugh takes up twice the space of her small frame.

“Mila?” Inga sounds anxious.

“Incredible,” Mila says right away. She tries to think of how she would react were this anyone else. “Oh my god, Ingri—this is so incredible! I knew you would get amazing offers.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” Inga says. “None of this does.”

“It’s real,” Mila says, “and you deserve all of it.”

They talk about where Inga will live (Grigory is insisting on SoHo), when she’s going (the end of May), and other small details that Mila forgets immediately. By the end of the conversation, the enthusiasm is feeling more genuine and she says her final congratulations to Inga with all her heart.

Once she hangs up, she just sits there on the porch, phone in hand. The sun is long gone and the moon has already set, but the sound of the ocean is still there, ever present. _It’s all happening,_ she thinks. _All of it_.

When she goes back inside, Yuuko at the bar with Yuuri, going through a stack of papers. There’s a bottle of sakė between them. She waves Mila over immediately. "We've already gotten multiple calls from vendors!" she says. "We might actually end up with a good selection."

Mila musters a smile. "Good, it was worth all those hours slaving away in the hot sun. Honestly, we just handed them the flier. I don't even know what it says because, as you both know, I don't speak Japanese." She nudges Yuuri, who is making notes on one of Yuuko's spreadsheet printouts. "Why did you send us anyway?"

"Oh, you know," he says. He scribbles out one of his calculations and starts again. "Viktor would get distracted, Yurio would glare too much, and I think Mickey and Emil would probably have burned the place down. You and Sara were clearly the best people for the job." He looks up from the sheet, pushing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, and smiles at her.

Mila rolls her eyes. "We were within shouting distance at the time, you mean."

"That too," Yuuri says agreeably.

Once in the guest quarters, Mila’s feet carry her past her room and up the stairs. She’s outside Sara’s room before her brain catches up, but the door is open and Sara, crosslegged on the bed and checking her phone, looks up and sees Mila before she can retreat.

It feels so natural. They go to the second floor bathroom to brush their teeth, and Mila tells Sara what Yuuri said in the bar. "He is right," Sara says around her mouthful of toothpaste. "Mickey and Emil would have burned it down, totally unintentionally."

"They're impossible." Mila had caught a glimpse of the skate they were planning to do with Georgi, and it involved about three outfit changes and a mock duel to the death. Apparently it was based on Don Quixote, or so Emil claimed. "They must have wreaked havoc in juniors together."

There's a pause as Sara finishes rinsing her mouth and toothbrush, then she shakes her head. "They weren't that close. They've only been like this... Well, since last year, I think?"

"Really?" Mila hoists herself up to sit on the sink counter and tries to think. Most of her encounters with Mickey early on their careers was minimal, but every time she can conjure up a clear picture of Mickey, he's with Sara. Except, as Sara just said, in the last year. "What changed?"

"A lot," Sara says. She's washing her hands, more thoroughly than anyone Mila's ever seen before, scrubbing soap under her neatly trimmed nails. “It was a big problem for my first girlfriend. Three years ago now.” She shuts off the water and reaches behind Mila for a towel. "I got better at setting boundaries is the main thing, though. With both her and Mickey." 

"Hm," Mila says. She watches Sara dry her hands and pull hand lotion from her toiletries kit. She offers some to Mila after squirting a generous amount into one palm. Mila shakes her head. "Smells good, though," she says. It does—like lavender and rosemary, clean and calming.

"I know. Mm." Sara brings one wrist to her nose and inhales. "All right."

Mila doesn't say anything as Sara gathers up her stuff; she just grabs her toothbrush and follows Sara down the hall, into her room, and, same as before, into her bed. She catches the aroma of the lotion one more time when Sara reaches over her to turn out the lamp on the low bedside table.

Laying there in the darkness, staring up at the shadows across the ceiling, Mila asks, "What changed? With Mickey, I mean."

The pillowcase rustles as Sara turns over onto her back. She sighs. "A lot of reasons," she says quietly. "I realized that I didn't think of myself as 'Sara.' I thought of myself as 'Sara-and-Mickey.' And... I didn't want to anymore." She sighs again, louder. "It's hard to explain why I finally did it. I'm not sure myself." She pauses, long enough that Mila thinks she might have fallen asleep. But then, she says, very quietly, "There's so much of life to experience, and I didn't want all of it to be with Mickey. I want to experience all different things with all different people. He's still in my life. He just isn't my life anymore."

Mila is at a loss for words, so she just makes a noise of agreement. Sara sighs just one more time, and then turns over again. "Night," she says into her pillow.

"Night," Mila says to the ceiling.

 

—-

 

 

For the first time since they started rehearsing for the show, the mood at the rink the next morning is... actually a little bit tense.

"Tickets are 99% sold out," Yuuri tells them when everyone gathers for the mid-morning group run-through. "Which..."

"We definitely expected," Viktor cuts in. "I knew from the start. Now we just have to make sure we deliver. All right?"

Everyone murmurs and takes their places for top of the opening. It's the first time doing it with everyone on the ice: Yuuko occupies Viktor's usual place at the boards to take any necessary notes, and of course Georgi is finally there, having learned the choreo from a video Viktor sent him.

Mila has done more ice shows than she can count in her career. Usually, they are, at best, a good chance to get drunk with someone new. At worst, they're soul-suckingly boring. But, as she whizzes through the opening twizzles side by side with Yuri, Sara, and Otabek, she has to admit that this one is actually turning out to be a good time. 

Yuuko has minimal notes, so they move on with the program and Mila gets to see the infamous Don Quixote skate up close and personal for the first time. The three boys seem to be having the time of their lives, even if Mila has absolutely no idea where Cervantes is supposed to come into it.

"Is Georgi supposed to be the windmill?" comes Yuri's voice from behind her. He's leaning against the wall, skates in one hand and tennis shoes, smiling (probably) in spite of himself.

Mila snaps her fingers. "That's exactly what's happening. Now I get it."

Yuri laughs and comes to stand beside her at the boards. "This sort of reminds me of that show we did in Kiev—what was it, three? four? years ago?"

"Oh god. The one with the guy who did the exercise routine? I don't even remember his name."

"It was his first season, I think."

"And his last," Mila sighs, shaking her head. It had been a good routine on paper but the kid had been just too inexperienced to pull off such a comedic skate.

"Sometimes I miss those days," Yuri says as Emil whips off his cape to reveal a leather vest underneath.

 _The ones where it was just you and I?_ Mila thinks but doesn't say. She doesn't mean it. "I miss them, too," she says.

"And then I remember that we were both angsty teens with too much ambition and not enough life experience," Yuri says. "And I realize how much better off we both are now." He grins at her.

Mila opens her mouth, but just then Otabek calls Yuri's name from across the rink. He's already dressed in his street clothes.

"Duty calls," Yuri says, grinning even bigger now. He drops his shoes and shoves his feet into them. "See you later?"

Mila nods, but Yuri’s already running off towards Otabek. The music ends and the rink is quickly filled with the chatter of the boys yelling notes to each other, until Viktor’s voice cuts through it to call them together. He gives them a brief critique, too quiet for Mila to hear, and then claps each of them on the shoulder and shoos them off the ice. 

When he looks up from his ever-present clipboard, Mila realizes she’s just standing there, holding her water bottle in both hands, as she zones out. But before she can pretend to be doing something, Viktor sees her and motions her over.

“Want to watch and give us some notes?” he says when she draws closer. Behind him, Yuuri is tying up his skates.

“Oh—sure,” Mila says, unable to hide her surprise. A quick scan reveals that they're the only three still in the rink. She takes Viktor’s clipboard and pen. As expected, the top sheet is mostly covered in doodles and random Japanese characters rather than actual notes.

“Go easy on us,” Yuuri calls as he takes his position at the opposite end of the ice. Mila mockingly purses her lips and pretends to make a lengthy note in response.

“Points docked for directly addressing the judge,” she yells back at him.

She forgets the pretense as soon as they start to skate. It’s to some sappy jazz duet that would have Yuri fake-vomiting by the second measure, but Mila can’t find it in her to be at all cynical while she watches. The song is full of beautiful longing (even though Mila can only catch about every other word) and the skate even more so. She’s so entranced it doesn’t even register when someone else comes up to watch alongside her.

Yuuri and Viktor skate in unison for the first half. They don’t interact; they simply mirror each other until the bridge, when their movements fall out of sync and it becomes clear they’re skating a duet with an absent partner. When they finally touch, at the key change, Mila can’t stop herself from inhaling sharply through her nose. She is suddenly aware of being in the presence of two of the best skaters to ever have lived.

The skate ends in an embrace, each of them gazing off at opposite ends of the rink. Mila can’t stop herself from applauding, the sound cracking through the space like a thunderstorm. She glances over to see that it’s Sara beside her, clapping as hard as she can.

Grinning hugely, Viktor pulls back to kiss Yuuri on the nose before they skate for the boards. “What. The. _Fuck?_ ” Mila yells.

“That good, huh?” Yuuri huffs out, eyes sparkling.

“I want to retire now,” Mila says. 

“I believe in true love,” Sara says. She looks like she actually means it: her eyes are sparkling too, but with what might be unshed tears.

Viktor laughs and takes his clipboard from Mila. “You’re gonna go viral,” she tells him. “So viral.”

“That’s the plan,” Yuuri says. “Now I definitely feel like I’ve earned katsudon.”

Mila watches them go, mentally running back over the program. “That has to be one of the best skates I’ve ever seen,” Sara says, as if reading her mind.

“Fuck,” Mila says on an exhale. “Maybe I should retire.”

“Not before we knock out our skate,” Sara declares. She brandishes the stereo remote. “Come on. I listened to the song a bunch and I have some ideas.”

Trying to choreograph directly after seeing Viktor and Yuuri skate feels like a fool’s errand, but Mila follows Sara out onto the ice all the same. The music starts and Sara drops onto her knees and into character immediately. She skates through the first verse with her eyes closed—marking out the few jumps instead of doing them, but it doesn’t make any difference. She skates, as always, with complete dedication. Her body bends and sways effortlessly, hair whipping around her face as she changes directions. It’s like the music is following her rather than she the music. 

Again, Mila can’t look away. But this time it feels like she’s frozen in place, her mind catching on to all the little details: the glint of the rink’s harsh lights on Sara’s blades, the flick of her fingertips as she extends fully in a spread eagle, the sweat rolling down her neck when she comes out of a camel spin.

She stops after the first chorus and motions for Mila to pause the music. Mila scrambles for the remote before realizing it’s on the boards beside her. “Something like that?” Sara calls once Mila’s remembered what button to push.

“Yeah,” Mila says. She puts the remote aside and goes to join Sara in the middle of the rink. Sara smiles tentatively, shoulders heaving as she tries to catch her breath. “Let’s put the throw in.”

Sara exhales out a surprised laugh. “Okay. Sure. Where?”

“The drop, of course.”

“A throw on the drop. Of course.” They both laugh, but Mila’s mind is already whirling with possibilities. She feels as though a whole world is opening up before her and Sara.

“What if I come in at the first chorus—and then I’ll do the second verse alone—”

“—and then I’ll come back in—”

“—for the bridge? Yes, I think that’s perfect. And what if the spin was earlier, during the lead up to the chorus?”

“We can try it,” Sara says, smiling so widely her eyes almost disappear. “We can try anything.”

 

—-

 

 

Mila looks for Yuri at the inn that afternoon, when she gets back from the rink, but neither he nor Otabek are anywhere to be found. When she texts him, she just gets a “`back later tonight!`” from him with no details. _Fine_ , Mila thinks. _I’ll just keep this magical afternoon entirely to myself._

She leaves her phone in her room while she goes to soak. The sun is already going down when she gets out and she has to rush through dressing to not miss dinner, which means she doesn’t look at her phone until afterwards, which means she doesn’t see the slew of missed call notifications until it’s almost 10’o’clock.

Her heart stops momentarily. Then it kicks back into gear, racing in tandem with her mind, which flips through the possibilities along with her mind. _Inga_ —but no, Inga’s name is there among the missed calls, alongside Tashka, Yakov, Yuliya, Emile—and Dom. There’s a fuckton of messages as well, but Mila ignores all of them in favor of calling Inga back.

She answers midway through the first ring. “Mila!” she says immediately, breathless, as if she’s been running.

“What’s going on?” Mila asks. “Why do I have twelve missed calls from you?”

“Oh—Mila... It’s... You haven’t—”

“Inga,” Mila says, “What’s happened?”

Inga is silent, except for her breathing. Mila can tell now that she’s walking, the sounds of St. Petersburg filling in the horrible silence as Inga searches for words. Finally, she speaks. “Nikolai...”

Mila is already putting Inga on speaker as she flips through her home screen for the long-forgotten Twitter app. “What did he do?” she asks as she waits for the stupid fucking thing to load.

“He didn’t do anything.” Inga sounds anguished, heartbroken, her voice distant and tinny through the shattered speaker. “I think his phone must have been—”

Inga stop talking, but Twitter finally loads, and there, right at the top, is a headline from Zhizn itself, with a photo of Mila as the image header. It’s cropped, just her head and shoulders from a side angle, but there’s something peculiar about it that has Mila’s stomach roiling with trepidation.

“Fuck,” Mila says, more as a reflex than anything else. She taps on the story.

“Don’t read it. Are you looking at it right now? Don’t, please, it’s awful.”

“Did _you_ read it? There’s no fucking way I’m not,” Mila snaps as it loads. Immediately Mila knows why the lead image looked so familiar: it’s Mila, nude, sitting at the vanity in her old bedroom in Lomonosov. It’s not scandalous—the angle is such that Zhizn didn’t have to censor anything, which is probably why they used it—but only one person could have taken it and he’s also named in the title of the article.

_Nikolai Zakharin and Mila Babicheva’s love affair_ ,’ it reads. _An anonymous hacker has leaked nude photos of SKA star Nikolai Zahkarin and figure skater Mila Babicheva online after reportedly gaining access to Zahkarin’s cellphone. The photos, which are being circulated widely, suggest a relationship between the two athletes that was more than friendly..._

The rest dissolves into a smear of meaningless letters. Mila realizes she’s crying.

“Mila! Mila?” Inga is calling her name through the phone. “Mila, oh my god, it doesn’t matter, none of it matters—”

“I know,” Mila finds herself saying, though she doesn’t know how. “I know, bunny, I know, it’s all right. Don’t worry about me.” She manages a shaky laugh around the lump in her throat. “They’re just photos.”

Inga doesn’t laugh. “But don’t you have—”

Mila talks over her. “I’ll call Tashka right away. She’ll get them taken down. She’s probably already working on it.”

“Mila, I’m so sorry,” Inga says. She’s clearly crying. “I can’t believe there are people like this in the world.”

“I know, dearest. But everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to call Tashka right now and then I’ll call you later, all right?” Inga takes several deep breaths. They hiss through the speakers. 

“All right,” Inga says. One more breath. “You’re really okay?”

“Of course. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Inga says and hangs up.

Mila is left staring at the article on her phone. Zhizn is too careful—other than the first photo, they haven’t posted anything. But a quick search pulls up hundreds of hits and it takes Mila seconds to find a thread that’s posted all of them.

It’s awful. They go back years. Nick must have never deleted anything, because one is from when Mila was only 17, when they first started dating. She remembers taking what felt like hundreds in her tiny bathroom just to send that one to him. Almost five years on, she barely recognizes her own face. There are photos of Nick Mila’s never seen before. Selfies of the two of them in bed together. And several, like the header photo, that Mila never knew Nick had taken. 

In total, there aren’t too many. But it’s enough.

 _Oh god_ , Mila thinks. “Oh _god_ ,” she says out loud, and then she’s crying to hard to think or say anything else.

They’re the horrible, full-body shaking sobs that come from deep in the chest. Distantly, she’s aware of how loud she must be. The core of her, the part that makes her the athlete she is, keeps trying to force her out of it but there’s nothing to be done except clamp a hand over her mouth and the other around her phone. Nothing crystallizes in her brain beyond _ohgodohgodohgodohgod_ for a long time.

An abrupt knock on her bedroom door jolts her so much that she drops her phone. It lands on the bed covers silently. Mila looks between it and the door stupidly, her mind still not grasping anything.

“Mila? Can I come in?”

It’s Sara’s voice. Mila nods, then realizes that Sara can’t see her. She clears her throat again. “Yes,” she says softly.

The door opens and Sara slips in. Her own phone is in her hand.

“Did you see?” Mila asks.

Sara nods. She crosses the room and reaches Mila just in time to gather her up as she crumples, crying silently into her hands.

“It’s all right,” Sara says into her hair, rocking her back and forth. “It’s all right, it doesn’t matter, I’m here, it doesn’t matter.”

“It _does_ ,” Mila manages to say. She pulls away and Sara lets go of her immediately. “Oh god, Sara, Yakov is going to drop me and I’ll never skate again, oh _god_ —”

“On what grounds? He won’t just because—”

“I have a morals clause,” Mila says. “He will.” 

There’s silence. When Mila sneaks a glance, Sara looks grim. So Mila pulls her knees up and buries her face in them. The bare skin of her legs is soft against her wet cheeks. She lets herself cry with abandon.

She feels Sara’s hand on her shoulder. “Mila. Mila—” she says, trying to get Mila to look at her until Mila pushes away and stands up.

“I can’t be in here,” Mila gasps out. The dark, cramped room feels like it’s closing in around her, the air too thick to breathe. “Fuck, I can’t—”

“Okay, it’s okay” Sara says immediately. She takes Mila by the elbow and pulls her out of her room and into the hallway. “Breathe with me, all right? In, two, three, out, two, three, four.” 

Mila clings onto Sara’s hand and the sound of her voice as she keeps counting. They walk down the hallway and up the stairs. Sara lets them into her bedroom, where the curtains are pulled aside and the window is open onto the courtyard.

“Is this okay?” Sara asks quietly. “What do you need?”

“This is okay,” Mila says. They stand in the middle of the room, still holding hands, until Mila comes to her senses a little more and pulls her hand out of Sara’s. “I think—I think I just need to sleep.”

“Of course,” Sara says. She changes quickly and they lay down in the usual arrangement: Sara against the wall and Mila on the outside, facing the room. Sara turns to the wall as always, but stops when Mila reaches over and puts a hand on her arm.

“Can you—” She doesn’t finish the thought and they both lay there, frozen, for a moment, until Mila turns over completely and puts her arms around Sara’s waist. 

Sara responds immediately, looping her arms around Mila’s waist in turn. Mila sighs and buries her face in Sara’s neck. Sara strokes her back soothingly. Mila doesn’t realize she’s crying again until Sara reaches up and wipes her cheek with her thumb. Mila pulls back immediately, embarrassment suddenly coursing through her. 

She and Sara stare at each other, until Mila’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness and she can see the concern on Sara’s face. “It’s all right,” Sara whispers.

Mila lays back down slowly, not as close as before. She can’t stop herself from crying, even though she tries. “Don't cry. Please don't cry,” Sara whispers, cupping Mila's face between her hands. Her thumbs wipe gently under Mila's eyes, which drop shut under the touch. The closeness, in the absence of her embarrassment, is so comforting that Mila would start to cry if she wasn’t already. Her hands come up to curl in the neck of Sara’s old t-shirt.

Sara lets Mila pull her closer, close enough that Sara can gently—so gently—kiss away each tear dotting Mila’s cheeks. Her lips brush Mila’s nose, forehead, temples, then back to her cheeks. Mila suddenly realizes she’s holding her breath. She tilts her face up, and Sara kisses her on the mouth.

It could have been an accident. It could have been just a simple gesture, a friend comforting a friend, except Mila presses in immediately and Sara kisses her again, for real this time. Mila returns the kiss, and Sara throws an arm around Mila’s shoulder and pulls her even closer. 

The slow press of Sara’s tongue on hers heats Mila down to her toes; it sends the breath straight out of her lungs. Yet, there’s no urgency to it, though Mila knows exactly how she could stoke the fire if she wanted to. But she doesn’t want to think of the future, of anything beyond Sara’s mouth and hands, gentle on Mila’s waist. She could stay like this forever.

They kiss like that, entwined, until Sara pulls back to brush her lips over Mila’s eyes again, one caress on each lid. “Sara,” Mila whispers into the vulnerable hollow of her throat, “I—”

“It’s all right,” Sara says. She rests her head on the pillow again so they’re nose to nose. The one eye Mila can see crinkles with her smile. “You don’t need to say anything.” 

Mila isn’t sure what she was going to say, anyway, so she simply runs a hand through Sara’s hair, just because she can. Sara raises her own hand to meet Mila’s, and they end up laced together between them.

“Sleep now,” Sara says. Mila shuts her eyes obediently and, for once, drifts off within moments.

 

—-

 

She dreams about New Year’s in St. Petersburg.

They’re in Viktor’s apartment, where they’ve always celebrated the winter holidays since he bought it five (six?) years ago, but it’s tripled in size. Yuri and Viktor are there, of course, but so is Yuuri and Otabek as well, who hasn’t yet joined them for a Christmas. It’s not a replay of one from her past, then. Dream reality knows no logic, though, so it feels like the realest one she’s ever experienced.

There are the disastrous mushroom canapes Viktor made the first years, and the snow is falling heavier than it likely ever has in Pita even though the sun—which should never have really risen in the first place, it being the dead of winter—is visible high in the sky outside the window. It’s warm, so warm. Mila can feel it inside and out. 

Everything is blurred into simple impressions: Yuri’s hand on her shoulder, the champagne fizzing in her mouth, excitement as they begin counting down, a persistent pounding on the door—

Mila jerks back to reality, back to Sara’s still-dark bedroom where someone is definitely knocking _very_ loudly on the door. Beside her, Sara stirs groggily. “What’s happening?” she says. Her voice is thick with sleep.

“There’s someone knocking,” Mila says. The lingering emotions from the dream are being quickly replaced with terror as she realizes what will happen if that door opens. The person pounds again and Mila sees the door is unlocked. There’s no closet in the room, and the mat lays directly on the floor—she pushes herself up to sitting—there has to be a solution, _maybe they’ll just go_ —and the door opens just as the sun breaks through the window and bathes the room in golden light.

It’s Mickey.

He’s gazing down at his phone, not into the room, but still there’s no time for Mila to do anything other than pull the blankets up to her chin before he’s saying, “ _Rella_ , did you see—” and turning to look at Sara. 

He and Mila stare at each other for what feels like eternity. Mila belatedly realizes that pulling the covers up makes her look naked, which makes it look like she and Sara had sex, which...

_Just when you think things can’t get any worse..._

“Sara...” Mickey says in a hushed tone of utter shock.

_...it does._

“What is going on?!” 

Sara sits up, pushing her hair out of her face. She looks even more bewildered than Mila feels. “Mickey,” she coughs out, then clears her throat. “Get out.”

“What is going _on_?” Mickey demands as if she hasn’t spoken. “Did you not see—”

“Mickey,” Sara says again, “get the fuck out.”

“It’s not what it—” Mila tries to interject, desperately grasping at straws, but Mickey talks over her, this time in Italian. Sara answers him forcefully, sitting up all the way in bed. Mila shrinks down beside her.

“ _Subito!_ ” Sara finally yells, gesturing violently, and Mickey leaves and slams the door shut.

The room is silent, both of them looking at the closed door. Mila knows, though, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing Sara can do to stop Mickey from talking.

She stands. Sara reaches up immediately for her hand. “Mila, it’s all right, I’ll—”

Mila pulls away. She’s just in her underwear and t-shirt and her phone is still downstairs, so she simply goes to the door. Sara says nothing else as Mila steps out and shuts the door gently behind her.

 

—-

 

Back in her room, she can feel the panic threatening to overtake her once more. Mickey knows. Mickey _saw_ them. He’s probably telling everyone right now, and—Mila is not ashamed, but the thought of anyone knowing about whatever is between her and Sara is more than she can bear.

She’s breathing hard, the sound harsh in her ears. _Sara kissed me_ , is the last though that comes through. Mila closes her eyes. She imagines herself building a wall in her mind around all of it, around this whole fucking mess. She places brick after brick until it’s gone.

Then she picks up her phone and does what she should have done last night. Unfortunately, Tashka doesn’t answer. _Fuck_. Well, she might as well call Yakov while she’s at it, she supposes, so she scrolls over to his name in her contacts and taps on it. The ringing cuts out quickly but there’s no immediate answer. “Hello?” she ventures. Her voice is thick and rough so she clears her throat before trying again. “Hello, Yakov?”

There’s a deep exhale on the other end. “Mila,” comes Yakov’s voice.

Mila’s stomach drops. It was too much to hope for that he would be on her side. “Yakov,” Mila starts. “I’m so—I don’t—” 

“Mila.”

Mila stops short. 

“I barely even know what to say.” Yakov’s voice is so cold. “I am very— _very_ —disappointed in you.” 

She opens and closes her mouth several times before finally saying, “I’m sorry.” 

“I should hope so. This is a disaster. We must act quickly to salvage anything.”

“What—what do you mean?”

“You’re coming back to Russia. Immediately.”

“ _What_? No—I can’t do that, they’re depending on me here, Viktor—”

“For an ice show? Vitya can do without you. He would agree with me.”

“He would _not_ ,” Mila snaps, immediately. “He would be on my side. How can this happen, how can someone just—”

“Why are you shocked? What is it I always say?”

Mila says nothing. The tears have returned and she refuses to let Yakov know.

“What do I say, Ludmila?”

“Not a crack in the armor.” Mila’s voice is barely above a whisper. 

“Exactly. I will book your ticket and I will see you here in two days.”

He hangs up and Mila is left clutching her phone against her ear. 

She chokes out one sob—just one—before she mercilessly forces all of it away again, behind the wall. She turns off her phone without bothering to read the rest of her messages. She manages to dress herself and wash her face. All things considered, she doesn’t look too terrible, which she chalks up to the decent night’s sleep.

The hallway is empty and quiet; the bar and entryway are louder and populated by Yuuri’s dad and a few locals. She can hear everyone in their dining room as she approaches, but then she slides the panel open and the chatter immediately dies. Yuri is closest and his face—flipping from anger to concern as soon as they make eye contact—is the first she sees. But everyone else is looking, too. Emil, Georgi, Yuuri, Raisa, Otabek—and at the back, huddled together, Mickey and Sara. 

The wall crumbles. Mila can see the dammed-off panic and heartbreak coming at her full speed, full of fury and dread. At the other end of the room, Sara is looking at her with huge, anguished eyes. So, Mila turns right back around and leaves.

She’s only two steps away from the closed _shoji_ when it opens again and Viktor and Yuri are immediately on either side of her. “Are you okay?” Viktor asks, taking her elbow.

Mila nods, struggling for control. One tear slips out and she exhales fiercely. _I won’t lose, I won’t lose it, I won’t lose it._

“Mila.” That’s Yuri’s voice, more careful than she’s ever heard it before. There’s silence as he and Viktor communicate silently, then Yuri takes her other arm. “Let’s go outside.”

Yuri sits with her in the courtyard as Viktor goes for a cup of tea. He leaves a little space in between them, as if he’s afraid Mila will strike him if he gets to close, and stares at his hands, not speaking. Mila wants to be angry at him too but she can’t work up the strength. The three years separating them in age feels like decades.

Mila clears her throat and Yuri’s head shoots up. “The entire world could be on fire and Viktor would still make tea before deciding anything,” she says.

Yuri laughs. Softly, but still with more enthusiasm than the weak jab merits. “No one’s told him we drink coffee now.”

Mila reaches over and takes Yuri’s hand. He links their fingers immediately, squeezing tightly. His palm is smooth and cool. “Yah, what’s this? This must be the first time you’ve ever let me hold your hand.”

He snickers but says nothing. His grip tightens just a little bit.

The screen slides back and Viktor reappears with steaming cups of tea in hand. He hands one down to each of them before sitting. “All right, Mila,” he says, crossing his legs and settling in. “tell us what you need. Do you want to talk about it?”

Mila takes a deep breath. She almost stars with what happened early this morning, with Sara, before stopping herself. She would have to explain their relationship in entirety, and that feels so much more impossible than cleaning up the Nick mess, so she just tells them about finding out from Inga, not being able to reach Tashka, and ends with Yakov demanding she return to Russia ASAP.

“Do you want to?” Viktor asks.

“No,” Mila says immediately. Yuri is still holding her hand. “I want to do the show. We’re just days away, I can’t ditch now.”

Viktor smiles, eyes crinkling. “Okay. You’ll stay then.” He sets his empty cup aside and takes her other hand. “The only comfort I have for you is that everything blows over eventually. Something else will come up and this will be old news in a matter of days.”

“But if Yakov drops me, no one will take me on.” Her voice is barely audible.

“That isn’t true,” Viktor says firmly. “Twenty years ago, perhaps. Not today. And regardless, you would always have a place with me if you wanted it.”

Mila can’t say anything. She just clutches both of their hands tightly and drops her head so the tears fall as inconspicuously as possible.

“So that’s that. Any decisions to be made can be made when the show is done, all right?” Mila nods. “Yura, am I forgetting anything?”

Yuri shakes his head. “We love you, Mila,” he says, very quietly.

Mila chokes on a sob. She pulls him into a hug. It’s awkward, the way they’re sitting side by side but it doesn’t matter. Viktor throws his arms around both of them. “What would I ever do without the two of you?” she says.

 

—-

 

Everyone has courteously emptied out of the dining room by the time the three of them are done, so Mila eats a quick breakfast in blissful silence. Viktor tells her to come down to the rink about fifteen minutes after everyone else so he can talk to the other skaters and “lay down some ground rules.” He cuts through Mila’s protestations easily, as if he can tell that they’re only for show.

Viktor’s talk means that, when she gets to the rink, no one brings up the photos, or Nick, or anything. Everyone is quiet than usual, though, and as she gets on the ice, she can feel eyes on her. When she looks, she doesn’t catch anyone.

Except Mickey. The noise and general chatter are approaching normal levels but he stands at the entrance and stares at Mila. She meets his eyes and raises her eyebrows. _Yes?_ she telegraphs. His frown only deepens.

Yuri stays beside her through warm-up, so close that he almost catches her elbow when she turns and he doesn’t. “Yura, you’re not my bodyguard,” she says in an undertone. “Give me some space.”

“Sorry,” he says, and he lets her go through the rest of the warm-up on her own. She turns into her backward crossovers and, across the rink, she sees Sara turning into hers at the same time. When their eyes meet, Sara smiles tentatively. It’s just a small version of her usual grin as if she’s afraid a wider smile would fracture.

They run through the first half of the show, which includes the opening and the boys’ skate as well as Yuuri’s solo, Mickey’s solo, the Team Russia skate, and Yuri and Otabek’s pairs skate. It’s the first time Mila’s seen Yuri and Otabek do theirs in entirety, and it’s full of as much drama and bombast as she would have expected. The song is some rock piece with a lot more screaming than Mila would usually enjoy, but hey. It does feel like a little bit of catharsis.

Sara comes up beside her at the barrier as Yuri and Otabek finish, just like she did after Viktor and Yuuri’s skate the day before. _The day before_. It feels like an eternity ago.

Viktor has joined Yuri and Otabek on the ice to give them notes before Sara speaks. “How are you?”

Mila turns away from the rink. She leans back against the wall and looks up at the stadium seats. “Great,” she says dryly. She pauses, then says, “Viktor says he’ll take me on if Yakov terminates my contract.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m glad to hear it, though.” Even though Mila isn’t looking at her, she can hear Sara’s smile in her voice. It takes on a different tone, however, when Sara continues. “Mila, do you think we can—”

Mila cuts her off. “I just want everything to be normal. Will you—is that okay?” She finally looks over at Sara, who is now looking out at the ice. Her face is expressionless, until she turns to meet Mila’s eyes. Then she smiles.

“Of course. I get it.”

Her smile is bright, but so thin. Mila returns it all the same. “Good.”

 

—-

 

In the few days leading up to the show, Mila throws herself into rehearsal and helping with all the last-minute preparations. Yuuko has finalized the list of vendors, so Mila makes up a schematic for who will be where in the foyer. She helps Takeshi cut gels for the spotlights. She goes running in the mornings with Yuri and Otabek. Even though she’s finally decided she is not a running person, she can’t deny that the routine is comforting, as is having Yuri and Otabek’s solid presence around her. No one brings up the photos and she has Yuri change all her social media passwords so she can’t torment herself in her low moments. Sara has clearly talked Mickey into keeping his mouth shut. Mila still catches him looking at her, but that’s a fine trade for his silence.

Sara doesn’t try to talk to her outside of practice. They spend a few hours making sure the choreo for their pair skate is down, sans the throw. Mila doesn’t bring it up again and Sara doesn’t either. Without it, the skate is more of a duet than a pairs skate, but that’s fine with Mila. She won’t ever listen to Flume again after this show is over, but that’s fine.

She barely sleeps the rest of the week, but that’s fine, too. It’s Wednesday, then Thursday, then she wakes up from her shallow doze on Friday morning and realizes the show is tomorrow. They do their final dress rehearsal in the morning. Viktor is so thrilled with the results that he individually hugs all of them as soon as they finish the finale. “I’m so proud. I’m _so_ proud,” he keeps saying. 

He’s not the only only overwhelmed with emotion. Before they leave the ice, Yuuko and Takeski call them together. Takeshki is holding several brown paper bags, and he reaches into one of them as Yuuko speaks.

“We’re grateful and honored beyond words that you all came to Hasetsu and to our rink. We know the result will be tremendous, and we have just a small token of our appreciation that we hope you’ll wear on the ice tomorrow.”

The gift is a little enamel pin of a green carnation, so delicate and beautiful that Mila accepts hers with both hands for fear of dropping it. “Thank you,” she says in chorus with all the other skaters. She pins it onto her duet dress, which does double duty as her finale outfit. Everyone around her is so loud, chattering about the show and who will be coming and what they’re going to wear to the afterparty. On any other day, Mila would be right there at the middle of it. Today, she just feels so _exhausted_ and worn down and when she gets back to the inn all she wants to do is sleep.

She looks longingly at her empty Corvalol bottle but has to make do with some mild cold medicine from the pharmacy down the street. It does the trick, so to speak: she falls asleep twenty minutes after laying down. When she wakes up six hours later, it’s the early evening and the sun is setting outside her small, high window. Her head pounds. She doesn’t remember her dreams. In the pit of her stomach, the sick feeling of anxiety lingers.

Eventually, she feels around her blankets for her phone, which notifies her of the usual slew of messages and mixed calls. She ignores all of them except one from Yuri. Sent ten minutes ago, it reads _`where are you? come to the courtyard`_. She sits in bed for another few minutes, wavering between getting up or going back to sleep. In the end, the possibility of food wins out. She washes her face and pulls on her SKA sweatshirt and Yuri’s beanie.

The bar is full, likely people in town to see the show tomorrow. Most of them are Japanese, but many aren’t. As she weaves through the crowd, she hears English, Italian, what her brain pins as Russian before she realizes it must be Khazakh, and several others that she doesn’t recognize. It’s like being at a competition again.

The courtyard, likewise, is full. All of the skaters are there; so are most of their coaches. Mila sends a prayer of thanks that Yakov had never planned on coming in the first place, therefore sparing her an in-person confrontation. She skirts the edge, looking for Yuri but she doesn’t see him. Mild irritation breaks through her weariness. It’s just like him to text her and disappear before she comes. 

Otabek isn’t there either, though she sees his coach Yanna’s distinctive profile across the way, sitting in one of the little chairs and chatting with none other than Sara and her coach, Henri. Mila nods and smiles when Yanna catches her eye and waves. Sara turns to follow Yanna’s line of sight; when she spots Mila, Mila feels her whole expression turn brittle. She turns away quickly.

She completes a few more circuits to make sure she isn’t missing Yuri, but he’s nowhere to be found. Just as she’s about to fuck off back to her room, Yuuri spots her through the crowd. He motions her over, so happily that Mila can’t ignore him. “Skulking on the perimeter is usually Yura’s thing,” he says when she reaches him. He’s standing alone, thankfully, and Mila allows him to loop an arm through hers.

“The little brat told me to come join and then didn’t even wait for me,” Mila says, letting herself whine for once.

“Here.” Yuuri offers his glass of champagne. “I’ve had enough and I think you need this more than me.”

Mila takes it. Yuuri is indeed looking dangerously flushed. “I’ve heard about bad things happening to Russians who overindulge in champagne in this courtyard.” She downs it anyway.

“Clearly you need your own lurid story to match, then,” Yuuri says happily. He catches someone’s eye across the courtyard and his mother materializes with two fresh glasses in mere seconds. When he thanks her in Japanese, she ruffles his hair affectionately before dissolving back into the crowd.

“I wish my mother would apparate to my side with alcohol when I needed her to,” Mila sighs, accepting the glass from Yuuri.

The courtyard erupts into raucous laughter just then; Emil seems to have told a winning joke, as everyone in his vicinity is doubled over in laughter. Anger sparks through Mila at the sight of Sara and Mickey and Georgi and many others around him: she should be over there, enjoying the evening, having fun with her friends. She feels like a shadow of herself.

“I need to sit down,” she says to Yuuri, mostly as a pretense to look away. But when she steps back, the ground suddenly sways. Yuuri catches her elbow immediately before she can lose her balance.

“Mila? What’s wrong?” He takes the most-full glass of champagne from her and guides her to one of the little seats in and empty corner nearby. “Have you been drinking?”

“Just that glass you gave me.” She leans forward to put her head between her knees. “Oh, fuck. I took cold medicine earlier. It must be that plus the alcohol.”

“Why? Are you sick?” Yuuri fusses over her like an old woman, feeling the back of her neck for a fever. “You don’t feel hot.”

“I’m not sick.” She takes a deep breath and leans back in the chair. “I took it to sleep.”

Yuuri is frowning, worry and disapproval mixed together when she manages to focus on his face. “Okay. How much did you take?”

“Just one dose. I just need some water, Yuuri, I’m okay.” He clearly doesn’t believe her—he moves in to take her pulse and she has to bat his hands away. “Stop, I’m fine. Just—please, would you get me some water?”

“All right,” Yuuri says. He backs off. “I’ll be right back.”

Mila concentrates on breathing evenly while he goes. She feels less dizzy with every exhale. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. What a foolish mistake to make, on the day before the show. If she’d really fucked up and landed herself in the hospital, that would be just one more reason for Yakov to demand she go home immediately. She groans, letting her eyelids fall shut.

“Mila?”

Mila’s eyes fly open. Of course, it’s Sara before her, wearing a look of concern and a beautiful purple dress that makes her look luminous. Mila closes her eyes to save her brain from trying to process it.

The rattan chair creaks as Sara sits next to her. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” Mila says. “I just drank too much.” She sinks deeper into her ratty sweatshirt.

“Already?” Mila knows without looking that Sara’s wearing that teasing expression, the one where the corners of her mouth deepen and her eyes sparkle.

“Yes, already,” Mila says sharply. “I’m trying to fucking cope without totally losing it, you know.” She takes another deep breath, then finally opens her eyes. She expects Sara to look hurt—and she does, a little, but mostly she looks angry.

“Christ, Mila,” Sara says. She sets her glass on the ground by her feet and looks Mila square in the face. Mila realizes that she’s never heard Sara curse before. “Look. I’m really sorry. About—everything. Whatever you want or don’t want is fine, but don’t be an asshole to me.”

“I’m not being an asshole,” Mila retorts.

“Yes, you are,” Sara says in a voice that brooks no disagreement. “I can handle the way you’ve been giving me the silent treatment all week, because I know it’s probably been one of the worst weeks of your life—”

“You got that right,” Mila interjects.

“—but now you’re just making me feel shitty for being a decent person and worrying about you, because god forbid I consider you a friend after this last month—”

“I didn’t ask you to worry about me,” Mila says. They’re both speaking in vehement whispers, as if they both know what could happen if someone overhears them. “I don’t know why you’re acting like—”

“You don’t _ask_ someone to worry about you, it’s just something you do when you fucking care about someone.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you to do that either,” Mila snaps. Her voice is rising and she clenches her teeth together, fighting for control. “I didn’t ask you to care about me.”

“No,” Sara says. Her voice, in comparison, is quieter. “No, I guess you didn’t. I did it on my own.” 

She breaks on the last word, the anger tipping over into clear hurt. Mila doesn’t dare look at her. She hurriedly scans the crowd for Yuuri, Yuri, Otabek, anyone who can rescue her from this mess, but she sees no one except for Mickey, who is walking towards them. He has a glass of whiskey in one hand and he looks thunderous.

Sara snaps out something in Italian that Mila would bet is another swear word and stands up before Mickey can reach them. “What, Mickey?” she says.

“I need to speak to you. Not you, Sara—her.” He points a shaking finger at Mila. He’s breathing heavily.

“Well?” Mila says, because she’s fucking tired, and annoyed, and literally could not care less what Mickey needs to say.

He doesn’t like her attitude. He tries to push past Sara to Mila, but Sara blocks him physically. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,” he says, voice thick with alcohol, “but you’re not a good person.” 

Mila laughs. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Mickey—” Sara tries to interject but Mickey ignores her in favor of trying to push past once more. Sara has to put her hands on his shoulders to stop him. Mila scrambles up to standing, kicking the chair back so she has some room to move. 

Mickey looks at her, his face full of contempt. “You can do whatever you want in your free time, that’s between you and your coach. But I don’t want Sara getting pulled into a—a disgusting world like yours,” he spits at her.

“A world like mine? You want to explain what you mean?” Mila’s voice is climbing in volume as well. People are turning to look at them now, conversations trickling to a stop in the closest groups. Mila wants to laugh. _Exactly what everyone expects to see: Mila Babicheva at the center of yet another controversy._

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you need to stay the hell away from her,” Mickey tells her, and Mila can’t help but roll her eyes.

“Fucking noted,” Mila says. “You’re really observant, aren’t you?”

The muscles in Sara’s shoulders, bare in the sleeveless dress, bunch as she stops Mickey from lunging. “ _Mickey_ —” she says, two steps away from full-on yelling.

“What’s going on here?” says yet another voice, but this one belongs to Yuri, looming up behind Mickey and Sara. He takes in the scene in seconds and snaps from concern to fury immediately. “Mickey, what the _hell_ —” 

Mickey barely gives Yuri a glance. “Stay out of this, Yuri,” is all he says. 

Yuri does not like that. “Mila, what—” he starts to say in Russian, but Mickey talks over him, loudly.

“I _said_ that this doesn’t concern you. Now can you please fuck off?” He gives Yuri a little shove with the hand that’s holding his glass and a bit of the whiskey sloshes out and onto the front of Yuri’s white shirt.

Yuri grabs him by the wrist. “Back the fuck off, Mickey,” he snaps and pushes him. Mickey stumbles back and into Sara, who catches him to keep him from falling.

“ _Yura_ ,” Mila barks. This is getting way too out of hand way too quickly. She tries to move forward to get to him but she’s boxed into the corner.

Mickey struggles in Sara’s grasp. “Your _slut_ of a best friend is _sleeping_ with my _sister_ ,” he shrills. He points at Mila again, face red and furious. “You’re all too busy _protecting_ her to see that she’s _toxic_ and _manipulative_ —”

Yuri lunges for him. Sara screams, diving forward to get between them, and Mila is right behind her, throwing herself at Yuri. Someone’s elbow catches her nose and she cries out at the sudden flash of pain. People are shouting, shrieking—she thinks she hears Viktor’s voice somewhere in the fray—but she manages to get her arms around Yuri’s waist and heave him backwards. He loses his grip on Mickey and his balance at the same time, so they both go sprawling, straight into whoever had gathered around them. There’s a crash of glass breaking, and Sara screams one more time before quiet falls just as suddenly as chaos had descended.

Mila just lays there on the ground, Yuri half on top of her, for a few moments, trying to catch her breath. “You fucking _idiot_ ,” she hisses at Yuri as he rolls off of her. His hair is mussed and his shirt is ripped at the collar but he looks otherwise fine and not at all sorry.

“Mila, your nose!” He reaches for her but she swats his hand away. Distantly, she can hear the Katsukis and Yuuri calming the guests and clearing them out of the courtyard. She looks around; Sara and Mickey seem to have fallen over the chair Mila was sitting on earlier, breaking the champagne flute Sara had set on the ground as well as the highball in Mickey’s hand. The shattered glass sparkles in the low light, as does the blood spattered on the tile... which is coming from Mickey’s ankle.

“Holy shit,” Yuri mutters beside her.

“Is everyone all right?” That’s Viktor, finally, sounding totally panicked. “Oh, god, Mila—Mickey!”

“He’s fine,” Sara snaps. She stands, yanking her dress around, which got twisted up in the brawl. “It’s just a cut.” She looks over at Mila and Yuri. “Mila, you’re bleeding!”

Mila finally reaches up to her nose, which is definitely bleeding. The neckline of her sweatshirt is soaked. “Ow,” is all she can say.

Viktor is kneeling beside her immediately. His fingers are cool on her face, prodding gently around the injured area. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he murmurs. “You’re probably going to have a hell of a black eye, though.”

“Awesome. Just what the show needs,” Mila says weakly. Viktor smiles briefly before standing back up.

“Would any of you like to tell me what in fresh hell just happened here?”

No one speaks. Mickey pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket to tie around his ankle. Yuri gets to his feet and makes a show of brushing off his jeans.

“Anyone?” Viktor crosses his arms. He looks perfectly willing to wait for an answer until one comes.

Sara finally speaks. “Mickey had too much to drink and he interrupted a conversation between Mila and I. He said some terrible things to her. He owes her an apology.” She gazes down at Mickey, who looks away, shoulders caving in. He mutters something under his breath.

“Apologize now.” Sara’s voice is completely calm.

Mickey looks at Sara before looking at Mila. He opens his mouth. He closes it.

Mila pushes herself up onto her knees. Yuri and Viktor reach at the same time to help her to her feet. “Save it, Mickey,” she says. “Don’t come near me ever again.” 

Neither he nor Sara say anything as she walks carefully back inside. Yuri sticks by her side, refusing to let go of her elbow. “You’re so fucking stupid,” she snaps at him as they make their way slowly through the bar, which has mostly emptied out, and down the hallway to the guest quarters. “Why did you do that?”

“Why do you think, Mila?” Yuri says. They make it to Mila’s room and Mila sits on the futon, immediately stripping off her sweatshirt. The bleeding has mostly stopped, so she just grabs her water bottle and wets the sweatshirt’s sleeve to mop the dried blood off her face. Yuri sits beside her.

“If you’d stayed out of it, it wouldn’t have gotten violent. Way to advertise how much growth you still have to do.” He still doesn’t seem remorseful. “Hey!” she snaps and he finally looks at her. “I’m mad at you. Don’t fucking punch people on my account, okay? Jesus.”

He finally crumbles, pulling his elbows up on his knees. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Mila.”

“Promise me you won’t ever pull something like that again.”

“I promise. I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

The sound of someone half-walking, half-running down the hall precedes an extremely worried Otabek appearing in the open door. “Oh my god—Viktor just told me. I was inside the whole time. Are you both okay?”

“We’re fine,” Mila sighs. “Your fiancė needs a scolding regarding keeping his temper in check.”

“Yura...” Otabek steps into the room. Yuri goes to him immediately and throws himself into Otabek’s arms without another word. Otabek looks at Mila, face full of worry. Mila shrugs. “You’re really okay?” he says quietly to Yuri, who nods into his shoulder. He looks back at Mila once more and finally sees the state of her face. “Holy—Mila, you need to ice that! Here—” He disengages from Yuri, ostensibly to go get some ice, but just then someone else appears in the doorway behind them. 

“Hi,” says the person. Yuri and Otabek shift out of the way, and Mila sees that it’s Sara. She’s holding a dish towel in one hand and an ice pack in the other. She holds them out to Mila. “I figured you might need this,” she says.

Yuri moves as if to step in front of her. “Do you want her here?” he asks Mila, in Russian. 

Sara looks between him and Mila anxiously, obviously comprehending the meaning if not the actual words. “It’s okay, Yura,” Mila says in English. 

“Okay,” Yuri says. He pulls Otabek out of the room. “We’ll be right down the hall if you need anything. Just text.” _Love you_ , he mouths from behind Sara.

“Love you too,” Mila says, and both Yuri and Otabek smile at her before they go. Sara hovers in the doorway, as if she’s unsure whether she’s allowed to approach. Mila holds out a hand for the ice. “Thanks,” she says.

Sara comes forward to give it to her. Mila wraps the cloth around the ice and buries her face in it. Sara just stands there silently.

“Is there anything else?” Mila says finally.

“Mickey’s going back to Italy,” Sara says. “He’s leaving tonight.”

“Good,” Mila says.

“I’m really sorry,” Sara says. Mila pulls the cloth away. Sara’s open face wears all of the same emotions that Mila feels: the anguish, the sorrow, maybe even the heartbreak. “Mila, I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” Mila says, surprising herself. But she does know, because she’s also really sorry. So she says so. “I’m sorry, too. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Sara kneels abruptly in front of her, reaching out. Mila drops the ice so they can hug. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Sara says into her hair. “There’s no explanation or excuse I can make for him.”

“He’s not yours to excuse,” Mila says. She pulls Sara in closer, so that she’s all but sitting in Mila’s lap. She has to turn her face awkwardly to avoid jostling her rapidly swelling nose but it’s worth it.

“Everything he said is a lie, I know you’re not—trying to take me down, or whatever.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mila says and Sara laughs wetly. She pulls back to wipe her face off. 

“Oh, fuck, your eye is bruising,” she gasps.

“Does it look badass?”

“So badass but also super painful. Does it hurt?”

Mila pokes it carefully while Sara watches, her eyes huge. “Ow. Fuck. Yep, it hurts.”

“I have some balm upstairs, do you want it?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” Sara stands and Mila does too. Sara stares at her, not understanding, until Mila’s grabbed her phone and the ice pack. “Let’s go,” Mila says, and jerks her head towards the door.

Sara smiles slowly. “Okay,” she says. She takes the ice pack from Mila so she can hold her hand.

They go upstairs. Mila sits cross-legged on the bed. Sara rifles through her toiletries for the balm, which she applies with one careful finger to Mila’s face. When she’s done, Mila pulls her in to kiss her just as carefully. Sara kisses back, hands resting gently on Mila’s shoulders. This time, when they fall asleep, it’s with Sara’s arms around her waist.

 

—-

 

In a perfect world, Mila would wake up to Sara’s lips on her neck and feel nothing other than joy. She would turn over to kiss her back too enthusiastically and jump when she accidentally mashes her nose against Sara’s cheek. They would laugh about it together while they brush their teeth, and while Sara reapplied the balm. They would go down to breakfast holding hands and then to the rink to warm up and then do the show, and then they would celebrate on the beach after and everything would be perfect, the end.

Instead, Mila wakes up anxious. 

As usual, Sara is still asleep, her arms locked around Mila’s waist, legs pressed up against Mila’s. Every particle in Mila’s body screams for her to _go_ , to run, get up and leave before Sara wakes up. Her heart pounds with it. It rushes up her throat, threatening to choke her.

It’s an instinct she has never tried to resist. She focuses on her breathing first: in through her nose, slowly, then out through her mouth. She closes her eyes and thinks of nothing other than the weird—but not painful—feeling of air rushing through her swollen-up nose. She supposes she should be grateful she can still breathe through it. It can’t be that badly injured.

Sara wakes slowly, but Mila can tell the moment it starts. Her hand, the one on Mila’s hip, tightens, then goes loose. Then she turns onto her back, sighing loudly into the brightness of the room. Mila waits for her to pull her arms away before she sits up, propping herself up against the wall and looking down at Sara.

“Morning,” Sara says. She smiles at Mila, as brilliant as the morning sun.

“Morning,” Mila says. “I feel like I got punched in the nose.”

“You look it, too,” Sara murmurs. She reaches up to touch Mila’s face, but Mila flinches away.

“Sorry, it hurts,” Mila mumbles. “I’m going to get some ibuprofen.” She stands.

“Okay,” says Sara. She sits up slowly, limbs still heavy with sleep. “I have some in my kit.”

“I really need to shower. I can’t believe I didn’t last night. There’s probably still blood in my hair. See you at breakfast?”

“Sure,” says Sara. 

Mila goes.

 

—-

 

She does need to shower, and she takes an extra-hot one. The steam feels so good on her skin as she ruthlessly scrubs her scalp, cleansing every bit of last night out of it. When she gets out, there’s a new email from Tashka in her inbox, detailing all the leads they’re pursuing and the takedowns they’ve issued. Mila scans it before exiting out of the app. There’s nothing else for her to do, so there’s no point in dwelling. 

It’s still a bit before breakfast time by the time she’s done and dressed. She’s not going to stay in her room, she can’t go back up to Sara’s room, and the courtyard feels tainted. So she snags a slice of bread from the stash behind the bar and goes down to the beach.

The sky is half-clouded, as if it hasn’t decided what kind of day it’ll be yet. It’s warm and muggy already. The air is like an uncomfortable blanket surrounding her on all sides. The wind offers no relief; it only whips her wet hair around her face. The slice of bread goes down in two mouthfuls.

She misses St. Petersburg. She misses her tiny apartment and Luc’s stupid jokes about his students and the routine of practice and the insanity of competitions and going out in the summer and getting coffee at Pishki with Yuri. She can’t remember the last time they went together. She misses it. She misses it so badly.

She hears something behind her, faintly, underneath the sound of the surf crashing on the beach, and turns to see Yuri coming down the little path from the onsen. He’s wearing a too-small tank (probably Otabek’s) and jeans, but as he gets closer she can tell he probably just woke up.

“Did you not hear me calling?” he says.

“No, I couldn't hear you. The waves are strong today.” 

“Your face looks metal as fuck.”

“I know. Thanks, I’m very proud.”

They look out at the ocean together in silence. Mila wishes she had her sweatshirt so she could stick her hands in the giant pocket. The little pockets on her denim shorts feel stiff and unused.

“Are you feeling okay?” Yuri asks her quietly.

“Great,” Mila says breezily. She can feel him looking at her, as if he’s searching for cracks, waiting for her to fall apart.

“I wanted to ask you...” He pauses so long Mila thinks he’s decided against it, but then he continues. “Is something going on with you and Sara?”

Mila glances over at him in surprise. “What? You believe Mickey, is that it?” The accusation covers up the fact that her heart is suddenly racing. She shoves her hands deeper into the stupidly shallow pockets.

“No, of course not. I didn’t even think about it until afterwards, when she came to your room.”

Mila doesn’t answer. She replays it in her mind, Sara coming with the ice pack. Sara apologizing. Sara kissing her back. And Mila leaving in the morning, like she always fucking does.

“Does Dom—” Yuri starts to say, but she cuts him off. 

“Where were you last night?”

“What do you mean? I was right there, throwing ill-advised punches at someone who is all too punchable.”

“You texted me to come down, and then you weren’t in the courtyard.”

“Oh.” He frowns as he tries to remember. “Umm... Yanna came, so Beka and I went to greet her and show her to her room. That must have been it.”

“She was there, in the courtyard, when I came down.” She kicks a bare foot through the sand, sending up a spray. “It’s fine if the two of you were off making out somewhere.”

Yuri’s eyes are narrowed now. “It’s fine, is it? Not that I was, but how many times have you disappeared at a club, or an afterparty? How many times have you been off somewhere making out with someone?”

“Too many to count, I’m sure.”

“Why are you fucking mad at me? Why is this suddenly about me and Beka? Are you trying to tell me that you’ve disapproved this whole time?”

“No, of course not,” Mila scoffs, because it isn’t. “It’s got nothing to do with Beka.”

“What’s going on then? It’s not like you’ve never dated anyone, either,” Yuri snaps.

“None of them ever mattered!” Mila snaps in return. “For fuck’s sake, you _know_ that. You’ve _been_ there. Every fucking time, until now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve been my person from the fucking start, Yura. No one in my life has ever mattered as much as you.”

“That’s not true,” Yuri shoots back. “You have Inga. You have Dom, don’t you?”

“I broke up with Dom months ago,” Mila says, because she’s fucking _sick_ of this. “Before Worlds.”

Yuri’s jaw drops. “What the fuck,” he says. “Months ago?”

“Yes.” She grits her teeth against the sudden urge to cry over it, after all this time.

“You never said.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You _always_ tell me.” Yuri sounds wounded now. His lips are thin, as if he’s also trying not to cry, and Mila shoves away her urge to feel sympathy for him.

“Well, I didn’t,” she snaps instead. “And Inga got offered a position in the New York City Ballet. She leaves Russia next month.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Yuri says again. “What the _fuck_ , Mila?!”

“Oh, so you’re mad I don’t talk to you now that you find out there’s something going on in my life?”

“What are you fucking _talking_ about, we’ve been together every fucking day for a month, you could have told me a thousand times and you didn’t, so you don’t get to be angry at me for that—” 

“That’s a fucking cop-out and you know it,” Mila scoffs.

“Don’t fucking condescend!” Yuri yells. “It’s not a cop-out!”

“Yes, it is!” Mila yells back at the top of her lungs. “Because you weren’t _there_ , not actually. You have a life with Beka now, and that’s _fine_ , I’m happy for you, but it’s not like you come to me first, either! You go to him or you go to Viktor or now you even go to Yuuri!” Yuri starts to speak, probably an attempt to defend to himself, but Mila talks over him. “And I get it. I wouldn’t go to me either for relationship advice, because I know as well as everyone else that I’m a fucking fuckup, that I wouldn’t know a decent romantic relationship if it slapped me in the fucking face—” She stops abruptly. Her heart is thumping painfully in her throat, the bruises on her face throbbing in time with it. She turns away and looks out, across the ocean. The surf is higher now, crashing loudly on the beach, and Mila watches as a small bit of driftwood is snatched up by it and smashed against the shore.

Yuri doesn’t say anything. Mila waits for him to turn and go, leaving her alone, but when she looks over, he’s just looking out at the ocean as well. For a second, Mila wonders if he even heard her, and then she realizes with a jolt he’s crying. Silently. The tears drip down his cheeks, and he doesn’t even lift a hand to wipe them away.

Mila reaches towards him instinctively, because she would comfort Yuri with her dying breath if he needed it. “Yura...” 

He moves out of reach and wipes his face furiously. He turns away, but Mila can see him shaking in an attempt to stay quiet. She swallows, painfully. “Yura,” she says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He still doesn’t respond, but this time when she touches his shoulder he doesn’t pull away. Then, slowly, he reaches up to take her hand. Mila pull him into a hug and he wraps his arms around her immediately.

It’s only when she presses her face against Yuri’s collarbones and feels wetness there that she realizes she’s weeping too, and then she’s sobbing, clutching at him, trembling with the suddenness of her tears. Yuri holds her and they cry together. The wind whips around them and the sun is so hot overhead, and for once Mila just lets herself weep.

Finally, Yuri clears his throat and brings up a hand to wipe his face with the back of it. “You’re right, Mila,” he says, his voice scraping painfully over the words.

Mila steps back, wiping away the snot and other evidence with her shirt. “Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear from your mouth.”

Yuri looks at her with the usual mixture of insulted and nettled and it’s such a normal face for him to make at her that relief crashes down over her. “We’re having a _moment_ ,” he snaps. “Can you not make fun of me for once?”

“Yes. Just this once,” Mila says, suppressing a smile.

“Thank you. Jesus. Anyway.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I’ve... I’ve been a self-centered asshat.”

Mila wraps her arms around herself. She would never, ever have expected to hear such a blatant acknowledgement from Yuri and she has to sniff loudly several times to keep from bursting out in tears afresh.

“And you’re not a fuckup, Mila. Not at all. You’re the strongest person I know.”

She bites her lip, hard, but it’s useless; she’s crying again.

“Other than Beka, you’re the only one I know who’s okay just on your own.”

“That’s not true, Yurachka,” she has to say. “I can’t be on my own. I’m so, so fucking scared of it.”

“But you know who you are. You’re so _you_ , it’s just...” He trails off in frustration, trying to find the words. “I’ve never seen you change yourself for someone else.”

“Where do you think you learned it?” Yuri throws that look at her again and she laughs, and then has to exhale. “ _Ugh_ , everything’s just been so terrible, all of you have each other and I haven’t had anyone.” _Except Sara_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t want to bring her up and plunge back into that whole thing.

“That isn’t true. You have all of us,” Yuri says right away, but his lips pinch together. “I guess... I mean, I guess things are really different from how they’ve been in the past. It all happened so fast.” 

Mila doesn’t say anything. Yuri’s eyes are so blue as he searches for the rest of what he needs to say.

“But you’ll always have us. Always. We’d never— _I’d_ never let that change. I would do anything for you. You know that. ”

Mila has to look away. She knows it, in her bones, but there’s no denying it makes her heart sing to hear it said so blatantly.

There’s a distant rumble of thunder. Apparently, the sky has decided. “I think it’s going to rain,” she says to Yuri. “And I’m starving. Let’s go inside.”

“Let’s,” Yuri says, and takes her hand as they go back into the onsen.

 

—-

 

She doesn’t mean to avoid Sara for the rest of the day, but it happens nevertheless. She’s back to having Yuri on one side and Otabek on the other, as if they’re her bodyguards. Sara sees this at breakfast and takes it as a hint to keep her distance, turning away too quickly for Mila to give her a sign otherwise.

When it feels as though last night didn’t happen at all, though, Mila knows it has to be at least somewhat intentional. She can admit that to herself now. She’s avoiding Sara, and it’s not the first time she’s done so.

Unsurprisingly, this admission doesn’t make it any easier to stop. After breakfast, Viktor pulls her aside to check in if she’s okay to do the show. By the time she’s done reassuring him that yes, she wants to skate, Sara’s left. _I’ll catch her on the walk to the rink_ , Mila thinks, but then Yuuri offers to let her ride with him and his parents and she says yes immediately. Yuuri’s calming presence beside her is like a balm for her soul for the short ride, even though they say nothing. When they walk in, Yuuko and Takeshi are struggling to set up folding tables in the foyer for the vendors, so she joins in to help them out. This means she changes in the locker room and gets on the ice after everyone else, and of course Yuri comes over the moment she steps out. 

“Give me some space, Yura,” she says. “It’s okay.”

“I know. Sorry,” he says, and goes back to his own warm-up while she does hers. Everyone is in their opening costume: black on bottom, white on the top, with their flimsy show jackets over. Even though everyone had tried to talk him out of it, Viktor had insisted that the jackets be the most iridescent gold possible. The effect under the spotlights is more than a little painful. Mila worries for the audience.

Who, Yuuko comes in to tell them, is already lining up outside. “There’s still three hours until the show,” Emil says. Mila feels similarly shocked. 

“We also have a lot more media reps than I expected...” Yuuko continues. “Viktor will be doing pre-arranged interviews beforehand, but Takeshi is telling them they’ll have to wait until after to talk to anyone else. And only if you want to.” Yuuko looks over the whole group while she says this but she smiles briefly at Mila, hovering in the back, before heading out.

They finish their warm-up and go over just a few bits of choreo before everyone settles into the lower concourse with their water and last-minute snacks. When Viktor comes in to see how they’re doing, Mila pulls him aside immediately. “I’m not doing any interviews.”

“Of course not,” he says. “You don’t need to.” She nods and he squeezes her shoulder. “Feeling ready? We’ve only got—” he checks the clock over the door “—thirty minutes to go.”

“I’m ready,” Mila says. The worst thing about skating has always been that dead time while you wait for your time on the ice. Even though it’s an ice show and therefore stakes-free, Mila still feels just as jittery as she had at Worlds six weeks earlier. She parks herself in one of the folding chairs against the wall and wishes her stupid glittery jacket had pockets.

The chair beside her creaks as Sara sits down. Wordlessly, she offers Mila a styrofoam cup of tea.

“Thanks,” Mila says. She accepts it, thankful for something to do with her hands,

“Sure,” Sara says, and sips from her own cup. “Sorry if I put too much honey.”

“It’s fine,” Mila says. Their conversation sounds stilted even to her ears. Georgi connects his phone to Yuri’s bluetooth speakers and starts playing some overwrought classic rock. It grates, especially over the music leaking in from the rink, but it also fills in the gaps between everyone else’s chatter.

It’s probably because of it that Mila, looking off down the curve of the concourse hall, can find the courage to say, “Last night. Was that just because you felt bad? Because you felt sorry for me?”

Her tone is so casual. She could have just asked Sara about her favorite type of beer. She continues to stare off down the hall, even as Sara turns slowly towards her.

“What makes you ask?” She is just as casual. Mila looks down into her cup.

“I just want to know, I guess.”

“Did it feel like I felt sorry for you?”

Mila digs her nails into the styrofoam, leaving little crescent marks. “No,” she admits.

“Okay,” Sara says. She drains her own cup of tea and leans back to toss it in one of the nearby trashcans. Her gaze feels twice as intense when she looks back. “Mila,” she says.

“Yeah,” Mila says.

“I think...” Her eyes drift to the ceiling for a second before locking back on Mila. “No. I know I have feelings for you.” 

The words hang there in the air. Of all of the things Mila expected to hear, this was not among them. She shivers involuntarily. Slowly, so slowly, she looks up to meet Sara’s eyes.

“It's all right if you don't feel the same,” Sara says quietly. She smiles, tiny and warm and real.

Mila opens her mouth to respond, but suddenly Viktor is back in their midst. “Everyone ready? On your feet, loosen up. It’s just about time.”

Everyone is immediately chattering twice as loud. The light spilling in from the rink changes as the house lights cut out. Mila looks back at Sara.

“Later,” Mila says, painfully aware that she has managed to renege on just about every ‘later’ they’ve ever had. She puts her hand on Sara’s knee. “Okay?”

Sara nods.

 

—-

 

The show is fucking _amazing_.

Of course it is. There’s no way it couldn't have been. Viktor cared so much and of course that meant the rest of them had ended up caring, too. The crowd is with them every step of the way, twice as enthusiastic as any other show she’s ever been part of. They roar with laughter at Georgi and Emil’s quickly-redone-to-be-a-duo Quixote skate. They scream and shout through Yuri and Beka’s. They sigh with tears during Yuuri and Viktor’s skate. 

She and Sara are up after Georgi, the last skate before the finale, and Mila feels not a single shred of nerves left in her body as they take their places in the darkness. She always forgets until she’s on the ice: when she can let go of everything else, there’s no better feeling than skating.

The spotlight fades up on Sara with the first few notes. She looks beautiful, her dress a lighter shade of blue than Mila’s, and she skates with so much emotion that Mila tears up just watching her from her position in the darkness. The crowd, for the first time during the show, is totally silent.

The spotlight hits Mila at the same time as the second verse and she lets it take over her. She skates her heart out, more than she’s ever done before. She doesn’t think about anything other than _feeling_. 

Sara joins Mila at the bridge and they come together and apart just as they choreographed. Pushing and pulling, reaching and coming short. When they finally close the gap, Sara’s warm hand sliding down her forearm to catch Mila’s hand, Mila sees an intent look on Sara’s face. They’re side by side for this next part, so Mila can hear Sara whisper-shout, “Throw me. Like we planned.”

Mila doesn’t have time to question it. There’s no doubt in Sara’s voice so Mila just listens. There’s one more brief sequence and then Mila puts her hands on Sara’s waist. They stroke together, the music crashes, and Mila throws her.

Sara lands it perfectly on beat, triumph in every line of her extension. The audience applauds, of course. Mila grins stupidly for the rest of the program, through their bow and right into the finale, which starts immediately. The colored lights flicker over the crowd, illuminating wildly cheering faces here and there. Every one of the other skaters is smiling hugely—Viktor claps her on the shoulder as he skates past—and Mila feels full of pride and excitement and determination.

Afterwards is madness; they change frantically out of costume and then everyone has someone to say hello to or a press outlet to talk with. Mila lets herself take her time in the locker room, hoping that all the reporters will be occupied by the time she emerges. She toys with the idea of just slipping out and going back to the inn, but she imagine the look on Sara’s face when she realizes Mila’s already left.

So she stays. She slips her beanie on and sticks close to the wall, and when Yuri is done talking to one of the Japanese TV shows, she edges up behind him. “Good show,” she says in his ear and laughs when he jumps, just a little.

“It was okay,” Yuri says, deadpan. He links his arm with hers. “I didn’t know you were gonna do a throw.”

“I didn’t know either,” Mila laughs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” The vendor turnout looks to be a total success—the one closest to Yuri and her is selling little hand-painted wooden tops and across the way is a woman selling embroidered pillows. “Is there someone selling okonomiyaki?” Mila asks Yuri. “Where’s the food?”

“Outside. Food licensing or something.”

Otabek emerges from the crowd, trailed by Yanna. Otabek hugs Mila immediately. “Amazing skates, Mila.”

“Thanks, Beka.”

“Really very beautiful,” says Yanna. She’s dressed in her usual blacks, hair back out of her face. “When do you go back to Russia, Mila?”

“Um.” Mila tries not to show how the question throws her. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, when you get home, give me a call.” Yanna brandishes something—her card. “My cell is on there. Just whenever you get a chance.” She smiles, eyes crinkling, and it makes her look a lot younger.

Mila takes the card. The paper is quality—it’s thick between her thumb and forefinger. “I will,” she says. For the millionth time that day, her heart is racing. 

Yanna nods. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear there are a number of foods outside I must sample.”

“I’ll come with,” Otabek says. “Yura, the usual? Mila, do you want anything?”

“Okonomiyaki, please.”

They go and Mila looks down at the card. “Did Beka put her up to this?” she asks Yuri.

“No. Yanna is big fan of yours. You know, everyone doesn’t always have ulterior motives.” He’s smiling fondly at her and Mila punches him in the shoulder.

“Shut up, brat.”

“Make me, grandma.”

The crowd moves, people filtering in and out, and finally Mila spots Sara. She’s standing in the middle of the entryway, speaking to a journalist. It looks like he’s doing most of the talking. She’s smiling at him pleasantly, nodding along as he jabbers.

Mila exhales, pushing all the air out of her lungs. Sara unconsciously brushes some hair out of her face and Mila’s eyes linger on the play of light on the strands, the glimpse of the inside of Sara’s wrist in the gesture. Her skin looks see-through in the faint sunlight streaming in through the entryway windows. Like she might dissolve.

“I’ve never seen you cry this much. Not in the whole time I’ve known you,” Yuri murmurs. He’s watching her watch Sara. Mila quickly wipes her face. She didn’t even realize she was crying. “When did it happen?”

Mila can’t pretend she doesn’t understand. “I don’t know,” she says. “Yesterday. Ages ago. I don’t know.”

“That sounds familiar,” Yuri says, very quietly. “You love her?”

“I don’t know,” Mila says again. Deep breath. “I think... I could.”

“She knows?”

“I don’t know,” she says for the third time. The journalist is wrapping up his monologue and thanking Sara for her time. When he finally leaves, Sara just stands there and watches him go, as if she’s too exhausted to do anything else.

“Mila.” Yuri looks absolutely appalled. “What’s wrong with you? Tell her, now.”

“I’ve never—with anyone.” 

Somehow, Yuri understands this incomprehensible sentence. He nods, takes Mila by the arm, and gives her a little shove in Sara’s direction. “Go. _Now,_ Mila,” when she hesitates.

Mila doesn’t remember walking over to Sara, only realizes that she’s reached her when Sara’s wide eyes have fixed on her, eyebrows just barely raised over them.

“Hi,” Mila says.

“Hi,” Sara says back. Beyond her, a flash of silver hair catches Mila’s eye and she sees Viktor, talking animatedly with Yuuko and Yuuri. “Yuri is glaring at me.” Mila focuses back on Sara, but she’s gazing past Mila, and Mila turns in time to see Yuri’s typically intense expression dissolve into an impressive blankness.

“He isn’t,” says Mila. 

“He was,” says Sara, and she’s smiling, just a little bit, in the way she does when she’s trying not to. Mila feels the first glimmer of what might be hope. 

Viktor sees Mila and moves away from Yuuri, as if to come intervene. But then he looks beyond Mila—at Yuri—and whatever Yuri communicates to him has him staying where he is.

“The throw went really well,” Mila says for lack of anything else.

“I can’t believe you listened to me and went for it.” Sara laughs softly.

“I trust you.”

“Oh,” says Sara.

They stand there in silence. Mila can feel Yuri’s eyes boring into the back of her head. Yuuri drifts over to join Viktor and they exchange whispers, Viktor gesturing at Mila and Sara. Yuuri glances over at Mila and smiles encouragingly when their gazes meet.

“So,” Mila says. 

“So?” Sara says.

The vignette behind Sara is rapidly becoming a distraction. Mila fights not to let her eyes be drawn, but then she sees a woman in a wrinkled pantsuit and a man toting a huge camera charging purposefully through the crowd towards them. “I need to tell you something,” Mila says all at once, determined to get it out before they’re interrupted.

“What is it?”

Just as the woman passes Viktor and Yuuri, Yuuri reaches out and snags her with an elbow through hers, deftly steering him back in the other direction. He’s talking and pointing—to someone he wants her to meet, Mila thinks, and the two of them disappear back into the scrum, the disgruntled cameraman pivoting to follow. Viktor nods, once, at Mila and continues to stand solitary guard. Mila’s certain that Yuri is doing the same behind her.

“Mila,” Sara says. All her attention is still focused on Mila but doubt—no, resignation—has her looking less and less hopeful. “What do you want to say?”

Mila can’t disappoint her yet again. She can’t do it. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again only to choke on her own air before she can make a single sound.

“Jesus, Mila,” Sara murmurs. She reaches out and takes Mila’s hand in hers. “It’s all right. It’s okay.”

“I have feelings for you, too,” Mila says, barely audible. One tear escapes and Mila has to laugh wetly. _What a small thing to be so afraid of._

Sara laughs too, quietly. “I’m glad.” She takes Mila’s other hand. “I’m really, really glad.”

Mila lets herself move without thinking: she closes the last bit of distance between them and puts her arms around Sara, burying her face in Sara’s neck. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Sara pulls her in closer. “Sweetheart,” she murmurs, “you have nothing to be sorry for.”

Mila closes her eyes and lets herself cry. It’s not the earth-shattering sobs of earlier with Yuri, when she was crying so hard she thought she might break with it, or the tears of terror and anguish on the night she found out about the photos; rather, it’s like rain falling after a long drought. It goes straight to Mila’s heart, soaking into every parched and deprived part of her. She knows there’s so much they need to talk about, so much to figure out, so much to heal from, but right now she feels safe and free and so, so happy.

 

—-

 

That evening in the courtyard is like redemption. The rain clears off in time for a beautiful sunset that colors the whole sky. There’s fewer people than the previous night but it’s still a good-sized crowd. And this time, Mila is right in the center of it. She accepts congratulations from Henri, Sara’s coach, returns Emil’s sidehug, holds a conversation with Minako-sensei that lasts longer than five minutes, and watches from the sidelines as Otabek and Yuri tell Yanna about their engagement. Yanna whacks Otabek on the shoulder, as if to scold him, then pulls both of them into a hug.

“I’m relieved and I didn’t even know I was anxious,” Viktor says in her ear.

“We can all finally exhale,” Sara says quietly from the other side. Mila loops an arm around both of their waists.

“I’m sure she saw it coming,” says Mila. “Yuri is _just_ that impetuous and Otabek is _just_ that romantic.”

“I wish I wasn’t married so I could propose all over again,” Viktor says mistily.

Mila snorts. “Didn’t Yuuri propose?”

“It’s contested as to whether that actually counted as a proposal.”

“I’ve never heard the proposal story,” Sara says, “and I _love_ proposal stories.”

Viktor opens his mouth but Mila speaks first. “I cannot _wait_ to tell you in all its gory glory.” She taps a finger against Sara’s wine glass. “But you’re going to need to be twice as drunk to not lose all of your respect for the two of them.”

Sara immediately drains the remaining wine. “Mission accepted.”

“You won’t allow me any measure of dignity even in my old age,” sighs Viktor.

“Go kiss your husband,” Mila says, elbowing him away. 

“The best idea you’ve ever had.” Viktor drops a peck on the crown of her head before scooting off to find Yuuri.

Mila’s arm is still around Sara’s waist. Sara has on another one of her sundresses, the material silky under Mila’s hand. Mila had dug the only dress she remembered to pack out of the bottom of her suitcase and thrown it on. It’s sleeveless, so their shoulders are pressed together, skin to skin. Mila can’t think of anything to say. But then, there’s nothing she needs to say.

“If you could go anywhere in the world,” Sara says suddenly, “anywhere at all, where would you go?”

Mila almost laughs but she humors her. “The North Pole.”

“What?” Clearly, this wasn’t an answer Sara expected. She looks caught between laughter and exasperation. “Really?”

“World’s largest ice rink,” Mila says. Sara snorts and they both dissolve into giggles. “Ah,” Mila says once she’s gotten ahold of herself, “no, really, though. I think it would have to be... Iceland. To see the aurora.” Sara _mmm_ s appreciatively but now that Mila’s thinking about it she can’t stop. “Or maybe Egypt to see the pyramids. And a real desert. Or Hawai’i? You?”

“I like all of those,” Sara says. “I want to see Machu Picchu.”

“Who?”

“The mountain,” Sara laughs. “In South America. The Lost City, isn’t it?”

“Let’s add it to the list,” Mila says. In the center of the courtyard, fresh champagne is circulating—for toasts, it seems, because Viktor is motioning the two of them over. 

“At times such as these,” he’s saying loudly, holding his glass up, “I find myself overpowered by gratitude and affection for the incredible people in my life. Today wasn’t just an ice show—it was an expression of love, made possible by each and every one of you. I’m so very—”

“Hear hear!” Yuri shouts, applauding loudly. “To love!”

“To love!” Mila echoes, raising her glass. Everyone laughs and cheers and the clinking of glasses echo around the courtyard. Vikor waves a hand, beaming. Yuuri pulls him in to kiss him on the cheek. 

The champagne burns just a little as it goes down, making Mila’s eyes water. She coughs to cover it, but Sara’s already pulling something out of her pocket.

It’s a handkerchief. “I’m not crying,” Mila says.

“Okay,” says Sara. She continues to hold the handkerchief out until Mila sighs and takes it. She dabs at her eyes as Sara slips an arm around her waist. “It would be okay if you were,” she whispers in Mila’s ear.

“I know it would be,” Mila says. “Thank you for the validation.”

“Any time,” Sara says. Her smile is so beautiful, crinkling up her nose and eyes. Mila can see where the laugh lines will form. Impulsively, she leans over and kisses the corner of her mouth. When she pulls back, Sara is still smiling, but smaller. More private. Just for Mila.

“What was that for?” Sara murmurs.

“Nothing. I just wanted to,” Mila says, because she did. She still wants to. So she turns to kiss Sara properly. Sara returns it without hesitation.

And there, in Sara’s arms, Mila can see it. For the first time, she sees her life—her crazy, fucked-up, laughter-filled adventure of a life—and beside her there is someone who makes her feel less afraid and less lost. Someone who knows her for who she is and still cares for her. Someone who could make the whole world feel like home.

Someone Mila could fall in love with.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. this story is basically auto-biographical. 
> 
> alternate titles include "relationships between women save lives" "sequels are fucking hard" and "avengers: yoi edition" (that last one via verity).
> 
> also i think i should mention inga is based on [Maria Khoreva](https://www.instagram.com/marachok/?hl=en), a real-life Russian ballet dancer.
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/skirmishofwit) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/skirmishofwit)


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